4 ms·

Seriously? Now you might be engaging in activities which mean you do need to engage in Defcon levels of preparation, perhaps you work in intelligence, perhaps y

by cmdkeen 11y ago

Seriously? Now you might be engaging in activities which mean you do need to engage in Defcon levels of preparation, perhaps you work in intelligence, perhaps you're a terrorist, or perhaps you're a journalist. But then you'd be engaging in Defcon levels of preparation all the time, including heading to any Western country. I suspect you're not and you're mistaking your desire for privacy with thinking the UK is in any way interested in you. This isn't a "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument I'm trying to be realistic. The UK has a strong history of an independent judiciary standing up to the state and of a government that has been legislating to increase scrutiny and safeguards for decades. This whole programme may have been under a "vague" law but it is covered under the law and the government is having a debate on making it clearer what is happening. In trying to update old laws to the modern age I think it is acceptable to discuss what the limits should be, but also accept that old concepts of where the state can intercept communications should change not just be written off as "oh well we can't do that any more".

JupiterMoon 11y ago
Or maybe she is a private citizen with an unusual sexual kink that she does not want her mother/boss/customers to know about. The UK government will not be able to keep all the data they are slurping up secure and it will end up in (more) criminal hands than GCHQ/the police. > you're mistaking your desire for privacy with thinking the UK is in any way interested in you. Why does the UK maintain a file on her then? And why on me? And why on you? If they are not interested why bother to store the data? Your second paragraph is inaccurate in almost every respect.
throwaway7767 11y ago
Yes, seriously. You don't need to believe that someone is actively looking at your communications to be concerned about all your conversations being logged into a database somewhere, for future reference. We know now that the only chance we have to prevent our communications falling into the mass surveillance dragnet is precisely to follow, as you say, "Defcon levels of preparation all the time". Despite what you say, your argument is exactly the trite old gripe about "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". Except maybe if you decide in 15 years to run for political office on a platform to rein in the intelligence services, you might. Then it might not be good for them to have this huge haystack to search through to pass juicy bits to the tabloids. Look into the FBI's handling of Martin Luther King for example.
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  And yet again the UK is not the USA, MI5 is not the FBI, Spooks is not a documentary. The FBI's handling of MLK, and the general culture of fear of Hoover in the political establishment, is an excellent example as it is all before any of this technology. It isn't an argument against this, it is an argument for the effective oversight and regulation of the intelligence services. The USA might have some bizarre legal concepts in which the courts defer to the state when "national security" gets played but I can assure you that is not the case here. We've paid out settlements to the British Guantanamo detainees because trying their lawsuits would have potentially exposed intelligence relating to whether they were bad or not. NB nothing justified their treatment regardless of who they were. It has always been the case that the intelligence services have the capability to destroy someone they don't like. If they don't have that then they're not any good at their jobs. If you have a (rational) fear that they can that is an argument for reigning in that service, not hobbling their ability to do the things we do need them to do.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    bizarre legal concepts in which the courts defer to the state when "national security" gets played but I can assure you that is not the case here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_courts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_courts "…the Law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal, and in this case it becomes little more than a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public. For this to happen efficiently, the activities of the legal services have to be tied into the war effort in as discreet a way as possible.." That was 1970, but if you think the UK security services have clean hands you are seriously underinformed about Northern Ireland. More recently there's Spycatcher, Zircon, Matrix-Churchill, police infiltrators in environmentalist groups ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_%28police_officer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_%28police_officer... ), and so on. Effective oversight of the intelligence services is really hard because it can't be done in public, and it's easy enough for them to convince politicians that it's all fine really.
ionised 11y ago
> The UK has a strong history of an independent judiciary standing up to the state and of a government that has been legislating to increase scrutiny and safeguards for decades. Do you honestly believe this?

by cmdkeen 11y ago

JupiterMoon 11y ago

Or maybe she is a private citizen with an unusual sexual kink that she does not want her mother/boss/customers to know about. The UK government will not be able to keep all the data they are slurping up secure and it will end up in (more) criminal hands than GCHQ/the police. > you're mistaking your desire for privacy with thinking the UK is in any way interested in you. Why does the UK maintain a file on her then? And why on me? And why on you? If they are not interested why bother to store the data? Your second paragraph is inaccurate in almost every respect.

throwaway7767 11y ago

Yes, seriously. You don't need to believe that someone is actively looking at your communications to be concerned about all your conversations being logged into a database somewhere, for future reference. We know now that the only chance we have to prevent our communications falling into the mass surveillance dragnet is precisely to follow, as you say, "Defcon levels of preparation all the time". Despite what you say, your argument is exactly the trite old gripe about "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". Except maybe if you decide in 15 years to run for political office on a platform to rein in the intelligence services, you might. Then it might not be good for them to have this huge haystack to search through to pass juicy bits to the tabloids. Look into the FBI's handling of Martin Luther King for example.

cmdkeen 11y ago
And yet again the UK is not the USA, MI5 is not the FBI, Spooks is not a documentary. The FBI's handling of MLK, and the general culture of fear of Hoover in the political establishment, is an excellent example as it is all before any of this technology. It isn't an argument against this, it is an argument for the effective oversight and regulation of the intelligence services. The USA might have some bizarre legal concepts in which the courts defer to the state when "national security" gets played but I can assure you that is not the case here. We've paid out settlements to the British Guantanamo detainees because trying their lawsuits would have potentially exposed intelligence relating to whether they were bad or not. NB nothing justified their treatment regardless of who they were. It has always been the case that the intelligence services have the capability to destroy someone they don't like. If they don't have that then they're not any good at their jobs. If you have a (rational) fear that they can that is an argument for reigning in that service, not hobbling their ability to do the things we do need them to do.
- pjc50 11y ago
  bizarre legal concepts in which the courts defer to the state when "national security" gets played but I can assure you that is not the case here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_courts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_courts "…the Law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal, and in this case it becomes little more than a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public. For this to happen efficiently, the activities of the legal services have to be tied into the war effort in as discreet a way as possible.." That was 1970, but if you think the UK security services have clean hands you are seriously underinformed about Northern Ireland. More recently there's Spycatcher, Zircon, Matrix-Churchill, police infiltrators in environmentalist groups ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_%28police_officer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_%28police_officer... ), and so on. Effective oversight of the intelligence services is really hard because it can't be done in public, and it's easy enough for them to convince politicians that it's all fine really.

ionised 11y ago

> The UK has a strong history of an independent judiciary standing up to the state and of a government that has been legislating to increase scrutiny and safeguards for decades. Do you honestly believe this?