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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 int

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.

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.