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GCHQ Tried To Track Web Visits of "Every Visible User On Internet"
An anonymous reader writes with Ars Technica's story on the relevations reported today by The Intercept that the UK's GCHQ has been tracking World Wide Web users since 2007, with an operation called "Karma Police" -- "a program that tracked Web browsing habits of people around the globe in what the agency itself billed as the 'world's biggest' Internet data-mining operation, intended to eventually track 'every visible user on the Internet.'"
Don't just ignore your privacy rights in one area because there is a greater threat in another. If you want these organizations to respect your privacy, you have to start by respecting it yourself.
You know its getting a lot harder the tell the good guys from the bad guys, so much so I am not sure there is any meaningful difference.
Article suggests "does". The sequence will go as follows, or similar, looking at web site visits, search queries, benefitting from LE access to Facebook etc to see instant messages:
- genuine national security threats
- interest in Islamism
- anti-establishment politicians and their most powerful supporters
- all remaining politicians, to keep them in line
- high stakes economic criminals
- campaigners against government policy or government-friendly business
- the most dangerous suspects of crime, e.g. murderers
- people involved in distributing child pornography
- users of anonymising services
- people who view any pornography that doesn't pass regulations
- posters to prominent or troublesome political forums
- pirates, yarhh!
- posts to Grauniad CIF or BBC HYS
Eventually nearly everyone is either under suspicion of committing at least one crime or has said something which taken out of context looks dangerous enough to warrant further investigation should anyone want to make their lives miserable in the future. The rest have said or viewed something embarrassing enough that (you were depressed once and looked for help? Furry porno watched one curious weekend? A racist rant... oh, you were just trolling?), should they ever become relevant in any way, the media will somehow find out.
Stormtards go home. Your ideas are utterly bereft of merit or use. You are not welcome here.
But how do you define the word "terrorist"?
To you a terrorist may be someone who flies airplanes into buildings, but to me, a terrorist is someone who uses hurtful language about minorities, members of the LGBT community, people who have been bullied in high school, or try to say that we should change other countries so that they match our religious and/or moral codes (if it's a cultural thing for men to have boy lovers in Afghanistan, so who are we to criticize them, or try to prevent them from having some NAMBLA love), or get involved in wars (how many innocent people were murdered by soldiers from the UK in the last thousand years ALONE?), or even someone who says things that hurt another person's feelings.
Everyone who does those things is a terrorist, much more so than bin Laden, or any of his followers. Besides, the USA created Al Qaeda in the first place, so who is really at fault here? It's not really a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" question... The USA probably paid bin Laden to send some chumps to do the deed, and then a few years later, they Adolf Hitler'd him (they mutilated the body and made it disappear, with no actual proof that it was bin Laden), and he probably plays golf with Obama every once in awhile.
And I find it offensive when people refer to President Obama as a "nigger". That word is reserved for African-Americans. Obama is a Kenyan-American. His mother was a white girl, and his father was a Kenyan. He has nothing in common with African-Americans.
Just think of the possibilities if they had used all those resources for something useful instead of poking their noses into things that were none of their business in the first place!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Yeah, go ahead three/four-letter agencies, I'd love to see what reasons you'll pull out of your ass for this one.
Advertising. Google tracks and profiles every visible user on the Internet. Do you use Google products or services?
Google is a corporation in the land of capitalism, with profit to create and manage, otherwise they no longer exist as a corporation. And for the intelligent computer user, they are already well aware that they are the product when they use Google.
Tell me again the bullshit reason any government agency needs to attempt to do the same thing, especially when that expense is paid for by the taxpayer.
The UK thinking on "would be far less far reaching than they are now and intelligence gathering could be much more targeted and effective." has evolved from the Ireland issues of small groups of people meeting without cell or set locations in the 1970-80's.
The solution was to track small groups of people down the the cell level and then offer each member a personal option: work for the UK intelligence services or not.
Over the years people where successfully advance up the cell structure exposing all existing and new cells they had command and control over.
Thats why the UK likes to watch everything and connect everything as it cannot be sure of how, where and when people of interest will meet and if they can even be observed without sat or other very costly and advanced platforms per person.
The "without further authorization" shows not much has changed from the 1920's or the classic Home Office Warrant (HOW) days. The pipes are fast, wide, always expanded as domestic and international data grows and collecting it all over every generation of optical upgrade.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"