Goodbye To Your Freedom, UK

[Naughty_Felid]

You're all being ridiculous. It'll only be an issue, if you have combinations of words such as bomb, suicide, Pentagon, Jihad and so on. The rest of us have nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.......Hold on a sec...somebody at the door...........................................What do you mean officer? I never said that....yes but............Nee naw nee naw nee naw....................

:lol: Very nicely done, certainly made me chuckle!

 

[Jonfairway]

Jerry_B wrote:
This still all assumes that any of it will get off of the ground, even if it gets through parliament...


The idea of our governments as being too incompetent to threaten our liberties might be comforting, but it's not very realistic considering they have already been competent enough to remove a lot of our most basic rights, including our right to peaceful protest. Britain just isn't any longer the cosy place of tea and cake and cricket and creaky old institutions, even if it ever was. It's dangerously authoritarian and getting more so, and the plea 'it will never happen here' is probably the best way of ensuring it will.

hear hear

has some one replaced jerry with a Parrot ??? no offence meant of course
but you did just repeat maybe 3 times what you said originally

and i say again , assuming they wont get it right is not a good option

and in anycase

remember i have worked in IT for 25 years and this is really easy to do !!!!

 

[Analogue Boy]

Maybe jerry could reassure us by stating whether he is absolutely 100% sure it would never happen and what evidence or proof he has to back up the claim.

I remember a similar stance on ID cards and they came sooooooooo close with people actually volunteering to buy them as an entry ticket to an Orwellian World. ID cards were the first thing the coalition wanted to get rid of. May herself was reported as saying...

"This bill is the first step of many that this government is taking to reduce the control of the state over decent, law-abiding people and hand power back to them.

Now the will and intent to snoop on (I can never remember what we are...Subjects of Her Majesty, Citizens of the UK - or Europe) is back and I believe can be matched with an increasingly efficient technological means to do so. A reasoned reassurance from jerry would do a lot to put my mind at rest.

 

[Jerry_B]

has some one replaced jerry with a Parrot ??? no offence meant of course
but you did just repeat maybe 3 times what you said originally

I have to repeat my point because people are still making doom and gloom assumptions. I mean, saying 'Goodbye to your freedoms' is over-egging things a bit isn't it? You're acting like it's a done deal.

 

[Mythopoeika]

...I can never remember what we are...Subjects of Her Majesty, Citizens of the UK - or Europe...

Cash cows, oppressed taxpayers, stooges.

 

[Jerry_B]

Maybe jerry could reassure us by stating whether he is absolutely 100% sure it would never happen and what evidence or proof he has to back up the claim.

What claim? I was merely stating my opinion, based on how the UK has ballsed up lesser IT projects over the years (or tried to get them going, got overcharged, then lost the plot).

Remember it has to get through Parliament. I doubt the project will survive that unscathed. It may even take so long to sort out there that a later government might ditch whatever's left, or abandon it as an idea.

 

[Analogue Boy]

It may even take so long to sort out there that a later government might ditch whatever's left, or abandon it as an idea.

You mean like how successive oppositions have tried to score points by opposing authoritarian measures imposed by ruling parties only to somehow be convinced of the need to increase CCTV, set up ID cards, snoop on innocent citizens, track their movements, restrict their right to protest and seek to deny a right to a fair trial when in power?

 

[Analogue Boy]

There's an article in the Daily Mail which points out the mission creep threat of surveillance on UK Citizens. The Mail is usually hysterically alarmist but it does serve as a reminder that laws set out to trap terrorists were routinely adopted by local councils in their never ending battle against people putting their wheelie bins out too early, pet owners and their dog mess and weeks snooping on a couple in a local school issue.


It's no use saying this never happened.

Council snoopers to read our emails as internet giants could be forced to hand over data

Local authorities will soon be able to spy on anyone they suspect of infringing council rules

Local authorities will be able to use the Government’s controversial ‘snoopers’ charter’ to spy on anyone they suspect of infringing minor council rules.


Facebook, Google and other internet companies will be forced to store all emails, social messaging and website visits made in Britain under plans being drawn up by Ministers.
But civil liberty groups warn that councils will try to take advantage of the law to trawl the new databases to snoop on residents and workers for trivial reasons.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -data.html

(EDIT)Another wake-up call for those who think Britain hasn't changed and is still a cosy idyll of freedom and democracy comes in a Guardian article. I've often thought there's a vested interest and products to sell behind these measures so it comes as no surprise to see this.

UK 'exporting surveillance technology to repressive nations'Fears that software similar to that which government wants to use in Britain is being sold to monitor dissidents abroad

Britain is exporting surveillance technology to countries run by repressive regimes, sparking fears it is being used to track political dissidents and activists.

The UK's enthusiastic role in the burgeoning but unregulated surveillance market is becoming an urgent concern for human rights groups, who want the government to ensure that exports are regulated in a similar way to arms.

Much of the technology, which allows regimes to monitor internet traffic, mobile phone calls and text messages, is similar to that which the government has controversially signalled it wants to use in the UK.

The campaign group, Privacy International, which monitors the use of surveillance technology, claims equipment being exported includes devices known as "IMSI catchers" that masquerade as normal mobile phone masts and identify phone users and malware – software that can allow its operator to control a target's computer, while allowing the interception to remain undetected.

Trojan horse software that allows hackers to remotely activate the microphone and camera on another person's phone, and "optical cyber solutions" that can tap submarine cable landing stations, allowing for the mass surveillance of entire populations, are also being exported, according to the group.

Privacy International said it had visited international arms and security fairs and identified at least 30 UK companies that it believes have exported surveillance technology to countries including Syria, Iran, Yemen and Bahrain. A further 50 companies exporting similar technology from the US were also identified. Germany and Israel were also identified as big exporters of surveillance technology, in what is reportedly a £3bn a year industry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/ap ... ve-regimes

 

[Jerry_B]

You mean like how successive oppositions have tried to score points by opposing authoritarian measures imposed by ruling parties only to somehow be convinced of the need to increase CCTV, set up ID cards, snoop on innocent citizens, track their movements, restrict their right to protest and seek to deny a right to a fair trial when in power?

That still assumes it will survive the process in the form it's proposed right now.

Analysis: Will the government's web 'snoop' plans work?

Tim Farron says Lib Dems would 'kill' web monitoring plans

 

[Analogue Boy]

You mean like how successive oppositions have tried to score points by opposing authoritarian measures imposed by ruling parties only to somehow be convinced of the need to increase CCTV, set up ID cards, snoop on innocent citizens, track their movements, restrict their right to protest and seek to deny a right to a fair trial when in power?

That still assumes it will survive the process in the form it's proposed right now.

Analysis: Will the government's web 'snoop' plans work?

Tim Farron says Lib Dems would 'kill' web monitoring plans

Not really. I am not assuming we have more CCTV surveillance than any other country. I am not assuming the road to ID cards was well laid out and a design issued and bought by fools who later demanded their money back from Theresa May. ANPR has seen legitimate protesters stopped from reaching demonstrations and there have been successful attempts to limit legal protests. Right now ministers are drafting new plans to restrict public protests so we all look happy during the Olympics. It's not just what we've lost - it's the transparent will and intent of government plans to monitor and spy on its own people and restrict our right to protest that comes up time and time again.

If you're putting your hope in the Lib Dems to limit what looks like the drip-dripping away of our civil liberties we're in a worse state than ever.
Of course you can roll over and assume things won't get worse but there's always a mission and a function creep to new measures - and a vested interest behind them that, with respect, far outweighs your assumption that it'll never happen.
Once you lose your rights, they're extremely difficult to win back.

 

[Jerry_B]

Not really. I am not assuming we have more CCTV surveillance than any other country. I am not assuming the road to ID cards was well laid out and a design issued and bought by fools who later demanded their money back from Theresa May.

But during the course of discussion of such things here at the FTMB over the years, dire predictions made by some about such stuff have not come true.

If you're putting your hope in the Lib Dems to limit what looks like the drip-dripping away of our civil liberties we're in a worse state than ever.
Of course you can roll over and assume things won't get worse but there's always a mission and a function creep to new measures - and a vested interest behind them that, with respect, far outweighs your assumption that it'll never happen.

I haven't said that it'll never happen. I loathe all politicians, but at the same time I don't assume that (a) they'll get things right and (b) what they end up with will be workable or affordable, nor perhaps therefore likely to become anything useable.

 

[PaganMoon]

No2ID has a slightly different, and potentially far more sinister analysis of the proposals. They argue - quite reasonably, it seems to me - that there should be no way for anyone, even (or especially?) the government, to obtain personal data like this without a warrant.

They say;
"The idea is to make all internet and telecoms providers monitor and store more details of mobile and internet use by their customers, and install ‘black boxes' in their datacentres to allow direct access by government departments to the records.

What does this mean?
This is popularly called 'the government reading everyone's emails' - [...] But that's a misunderstanding. Traffic data tells a different story to reading mail. And a much more detailed one: who you contact, how, where from, for how long, what you read and watch, what games you play, what you search for; all your online and telephone habits and most of the technical details of your equipment and software.

As Sir Tim Berners-Lee put it talking to the Guardian:
"The amount of control you have over somebody if you can monitor internet activity is amazing. You get to know every detail, you get to know, in a way, more intimate details about their life than any person that they talk to because often people will confide in the internet as they find their way through medical websites …And, because officially it is not message content, then, like the more limited set of information already retained, all such data could be obtained and used without a warrant. There are already over 500,000 data requests a year. All of them are self-authorised by the investigating organisations ' [...]
The existing law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2001, should be altered so that communications data may be obtained or monitored where a judge or magistrate accepts there is a case for it and grants a warrant"

From what Big Brother Watch say, the whole system might well be illegal under EU law. Talking about ACTA they quote the Assistant European Data Protection Supervisor;
“Such general monitoring is especially intrusive to individuals’ rights and freedoms when it is not well defined and there is no limitation to it, in scope, in time, and in terms of persons concerned,”
http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/ ... 5nLCdmQnc8