10 ms·

What about a boycott? The UK is fairly close to crossing a line which would require me to either stop working (and do everything under the radar), or leave the

What about a boycott? The UK is fairly close to crossing a line which would require me to either stop working (and do everything under the radar), or leave the country. It sounds like the US might be doing a similar thing soon. What happens if all of the (semi-competent) developers suddenly either refuse to work or simply can't? The whole situation is truly bonkers to me - there is no debate to be had at all. If you ban secure encryption I cannot stay in your country any more - it is the last warning sign I will accept, if I wait too much longer the borders will close before me. It represents my elected government telling me that I cannot do a thing which I do every single day without fail. It's as if someone turns around and says to my grandmother 'knitting is banned'. That just isn't how it works.

skrebbel 11y ago
Nice idea, but I assume you have neither a family nor a mortgage?
- nitrogen 11y ago
  If your home is under physical attack, you abandon your home as a refugee. Maybe some developers feel strongly enough to do the same when their livelihoods are under ideological attack.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  You are responsible for protecting your family. That may mean you have to sell your home. Do you rather want to do that or sacrifice your families freedom?
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    The trouble is that damn near everyone will sacrifice your freedom for their family's comfort. People simply aren't noble as a whole.
    - xtian 11y ago
      Is that a fact? Or is it learned behavior? This sort of lazy, defeatist appeal to some rigid notion of human nature is a pernicious refrain in any discussion about real change. The only thing you can say for sure about humans is that we possess a capacity for change and adaptation whose bounds have yet to be identified. But if you want to live in a box, then that's what you'll get.
- mavdi 11y ago
  I have both and will leave the UK once backdoored encryption comes into force.
- nyan4 11y ago
  "I have kids to feed" was used to justify many atrocities throughout history.
- iolothebard 11y ago
  I assume you live paycheck to paycheck on an income that's probably 2-3x the median income for your location?
sandstrom 11y ago
With a good chunk of US developers it wouldn't take more than a few days before employers felt the pain and it had generated plenty of headlines. Sure, employers would be wrongfully punished, but they'd all spend more money buying political decisions in favor of encryption (and spending money seems to be the only way to influence politicians in the US nowadays).
- Freak_NL 11y ago
  While I agree with the sentiment, I fear that for many software developers ensuring the continuity of their livelihood is more important — either by necessity or choice — than defending the right to privacy and the freedom to keep private records.
  - xtian 11y ago
    Livelihood is something we build together, not something granted from above. To forget that is to cede all personal agency and integrity.
    - mistercow 11y ago
      That's a hard sell for those of us with children to support.
      - nitrogen 11y ago
        Move to a cheaper house, save up six months expenses. If the issue isn't important enough to sacrifice your comfort for it, it won't go your way. Your children will grow up as subjects, rather than citizens.
      - xtian 11y ago
        Supporting your children extends beyond giving them a genome and physical sustenance. Genes haven't been the primary avenue of change in our species for at least a hundred thousand years. The significant things we pass on to future generations are our cultures, our languages, our ideas, our ways of life. Every moment we are building that inheritance. If we want to give your children and theirs a world where their hearts and minds are nurtured, where they are able to live with integrity and human-heartedness, then we're going to have to make some uncomfortable changes. I should note that I don't really have a strong opinion on the idea of a boycott. I'm just reacting to the feeling of impossibility that people always express whenever someone proposes a challenging idea. In my experience, that feeling is typically where we hide the simple solution to a problem.
cJ0th 11y ago
But where would you go? If the UK and the US proceed like this then, as with so many issues, the rest of the world will follow. Germany, for instance, looks rather pro privacy at the moment. But I am pretty sure they'd be some of the first to follow the UK/US.
- StringyBob 11y ago
  For the US/UK this is the thin end of the wedge. Germany has, in many people's lifetimes, been at the other end. Have a look at what the Stasi were up to in East Germany until 1989 to understand why Germans feel privacy is important.
  - cJ0th 11y ago
    As a German I do know about what the Stasi did. The thing is that most Germans don't acknowledge the relationship between what was going on then and what is going on now. I don't know a single (German) person outside of tech who thinks anything they (ordinarily) do online or on their smartphone could be used against them in one way or another. Some may complain about the government but they didn't change their habits when it comes to using their smartphone or laptop. They don't realize that, for instance, every picture they add to facebook will train algorithms that could be used for all kind of purposes. President Gauck doesn't think it is valid to compare the Stasi and the NSA > Gauck wehrt sich gegen Vergleich der NSA mit der Stasi Das erklärt auch, warum er in dem Interview jeden Vergleich zwischen den Methoden der Stasi und den Aktivitäten der NSA weit zurückweist. Die Stasi habe wie jeder Geheimdienst in einer Diktatur "Krieg gegen das eigene Volk geführt". Sie habe die Bürger bespitzelt, um diese Bespitzelungen gegen die Bürger zu richten. Davon könne aktuell nicht die Rede sein. "Hier sprechen wir von einer Gefahr für die Demokratie innerhalb der Demokratie." http://www.nzz.ch/international/nsa-forschte-merkel-umfassender-aus-als-bisher-bekannt-1.18699776 http://www.nzz.ch/international/nsa-forschte-merkel-umfassen... And Chanchelor Merkel declared data the "raw material of the 21th century" and urged Germans to rethink their position on privacy > Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel hat Daten als "Rohstoffe des 21. Jahrhunderts" bezeichnet. "Hier müssen wir jetzt aufpassen, dass der Datenschutz nicht die Oberhand über die wirtschaftliche Verarbeitung gewinnt", sagte die CDU-Politikern am Montag in Berlin beim Verlegerkongress Publishers' Summit. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Merkel-Daten-sind-Rohstoffe-des-21-Jahrhunderts-2867735.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Merkel-Daten-sind-Roh... Both, Merkel and Gauck, grew up in the GDR!
vacri 11y ago
> What happens if all of the (semi-competent) developers suddenly either refuse to work or simply can't? Never going to happen, even in wild fantasies. Trying to get developers to all move in the same direction is like trying to herd cats.
- voidz 11y ago
  ok so we need a lot of food
- zanny 11y ago
  We can talk about collective developer action when developers actually collectively organize. Maybe all those IBM and Yahoo layoffs will consider the value of unionizing while fishing for new work in the next few months....
  - nickff 11y ago
    IBM and Yahoo are sinking ships; becoming unionized to get job security there is the equivalent of lashing yourself to their mast, when you should just get in a lifeboat.
elorant 11y ago
The problem with a boycott of that kind is that it would take too long to have consequences feeled by the general public. It’s not like we could block roads and disrupt public transportation. While the whole world is relied on computers a very small percentage of everyday work is mission critical to need a constant maintenance and care by developers. From the other hand it could hurt businesses which isn’t our goal since most of these guys are probably already on our side. We should find something more targeted that could have a greater impact in a shorter timeframe.
- calgoo 11y ago
  What if we get the SysAdmins and NetOps guys to join? I believe that could be felt quite a lot more.
- CM30 11y ago
  I think they'd notice quite quickly if the whole of Google went offline for a week or so. Like literally, no search, no gmail, no maps, no anything. Now imagine if other large companies did the same, like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Heck, want to make a real effect? Have a boycott which takes AWS offline for a few weeks, including everything hosted on it. The consequences would become clear soon enough. Bonus points if the White House and Houses of Parliament sites were taken offline with it.
  - elorant 11y ago
    Sure, but as I said in my parent comment in such a case we're hurting corporations. Why would we want to do that? Google isn't our enemy here, they're probably in the same boat as we're. Of course they could willingly participate which would be a game-changer but I seriously doubt they'd go in such extreme measures because it could alienate them in the eyes of the state.
    - krapp 11y ago
      >Google isn't our enemy here, they're probably in the same boat as we're. Google is the enemy. Like Apple, they're a PRISM participant, and while that doesn't necessarily mean they offer "direct and open access to all user data" like some believe, it still means they willingly collaborate with the NSA, because they're required and obligated to do so under the law. Any company subject to US law is also subject to NSLs, with which they can be forced to act as covert agents for the NSA. We're all in the same boat, but that's because the enemy is us. The entirety of the United States' IT and electronics industries is the enemy, here, and the victim.
narrator 11y ago
The history of civilization is full of battles over technology between the people and the government. New technology arrives that disrupts government functions and the government had to go about banning and controlling it. It's a pretty regular thing. The mandarins cracked down on tech development in China leading to stagnation. The Ottomans banned the printing press. The Japanese shut out all outside influence for a few hundred years. Now we ban encryption. Go figure.
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  There seems to be a difference between your examples and encryption though. All of your examples were developments that created positive value. AFAICT encryption in itself doesn't create positive value, it only prevents negative value. If, for example, our letters couldn't be opened, encryption would only be a waste of resources.
  - emXdem 11y ago
    That's not true. Being able to programatically verify (via public private key) makes things like ssl/key authorities possible. That's a multi-billion dollar industry.
    - oh_sigh 11y ago
      Cryptographic signatures are not the same as encryption.
  - nateabele 11y ago
    It is an undisputed historical fact that ubiquitous strong encryption was the primary enabler in the explosion of online commerce. What are you even talking about?
    - oh_sigh 11y ago
      Source?
7952 11y ago
It would be great to see large website blocking government IP addresses, even for a few days Why give access to people who are trying to attack the system?
- bingus800 11y ago
  Nah, just refuse to encrypt their shopping cart sessions. They don't really need TLS for entering that credit card, do they?
  - BinaryIdiot 11y ago
    Obviously no company would do this but holy shit would that make the point. Just imaging Amazon, Apple, Google; practically everyone requiring government based IP addresses to go through HTTP for authentication, purchasing, etc and how quickly all of their data gets spilled onto the internet. I mean ultimately it would be a "dick move" anyway but it would drive the point home so quickly.
    - djillionsmix 11y ago
      Is there some reason why the government wouldn't be able to license the use of unadulterated crypto for purposes it doesn't give a shit about, like you transmitting your credit card number to online retailers, while mandating some form of government access in situations where it does give a shit, such as being able to access the data stored on disk-encrypted cell phones? I'm sincerely asking here, I don't know.
      - studentrob 11y ago
        Fair question. Sounds like you don't know much about encryption. I'll do my best. Encryption is software-based and is as available to people connected to the internet as checking out a book from the library. Using encryption is free, and writing software that makes use of encryption is something anyone could teach themselves. I think what you're getting at is, why can't we have some forms of encryption that have back doors for government, and other forms that have no back doors. Think about computer viruses. They are designed to infiltrate your system, and any system that is like yours. If a virus targets Windows 7 and infects your computer, then it would be able to infect any Windows 7 machine. The same is true for bugs or vulnerabilities within legitimate software. Say I run a WordPress site. The computer that serves my website runs WordPress 3.4, for example. Let's say a weakness is found in WordPress 3.4 that allows anyone using the username "jabberwocky" to log into my site and gain administrator privileges. This enables them to edit text and photos on my site. WordPress discovers this weakness and releases an upgrade to 3.5 which fixes the bug and no longer allows users to gain administrator status when logged in as "jabberwocky". If I don't upgrade my site to 3.5, my system is still vulnerable. Further, everyone knows about the weakness in WordPress 3.4 because the 3.5 release notes explain the reason for the upgrade. My site becomes an instant target for any hackers. If my business were based on this website it could really hurt my reputation, profits etc. if someone were to gain control of my site. What the government is asking Apple to do is allow them to login as "jabberwocky" whenever they have a warrant. By doing this, Apple enables anyone to login as "jabberwocky" so long as they have the special software which Apple is being asked to write. And, since the government is asking for this access permanently, Apple will never be allowed to modify this security weakness sufficiently so that it does not exist, because by court order it must exist. The final point I would make is that since encryption is so readily available, any user can download software that makes use of encrypted communications in less than a minute with an internet connection. Compelling Apple to weaken their encryption system does nothing to provide the DOJ with access to data within these other communication programs. Some examples are Signal, wickr and Telegram. Senator Lindsey Graham makes this point at the end of his questioning of Attorney General Loretta Lynch [1]. I hope you'll give it a listen. [1] https://youtu.be/uk4hYAwCdhU?t=1m44s https://youtu.be/uk4hYAwCdhU?t=1m44s
jasonkostempski 11y ago
While we're boycotting, we should all run for office and vote for each other.
stevetrewick 11y ago
>That just isn't how it works. That is exactly and precisely how it works. In a common law legal system like the UK everything is legal until it suddenly isn't because some act of legislation makes it so. There is no constitution to restrict what legislation the government may choose to enact. There is a body of EU law that has some bearing but much that is relevant here (e.g. Convention of Human Rights) either comes with or was enacted into UK law with 'except because crime or national security, think of the children' tagged onto every clause. Over just the last few decades UK governments have banned all manner of things, all of which were things people were doing every day. Hunting, smoking, various types of porn and 'legal highs' are some that immediately come to mind, but there are plenty more.

skrebbel 11y ago

Nice idea, but I assume you have neither a family nor a mortgage?

nitrogen 11y ago
If your home is under physical attack, you abandon your home as a refugee. Maybe some developers feel strongly enough to do the same when their livelihoods are under ideological attack.
tomjen3 11y ago
You are responsible for protecting your family. That may mean you have to sell your home. Do you rather want to do that or sacrifice your families freedom?
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  The trouble is that damn near everyone will sacrifice your freedom for their family's comfort. People simply aren't noble as a whole.
  - xtian 11y ago
    Is that a fact? Or is it learned behavior? This sort of lazy, defeatist appeal to some rigid notion of human nature is a pernicious refrain in any discussion about real change. The only thing you can say for sure about humans is that we possess a capacity for change and adaptation whose bounds have yet to be identified. But if you want to live in a box, then that's what you'll get.
mavdi 11y ago
I have both and will leave the UK once backdoored encryption comes into force.
nyan4 11y ago
"I have kids to feed" was used to justify many atrocities throughout history.
iolothebard 11y ago
I assume you live paycheck to paycheck on an income that's probably 2-3x the median income for your location?

sandstrom 11y ago

With a good chunk of US developers it wouldn't take more than a few days before employers felt the pain and it had generated plenty of headlines. Sure, employers would be wrongfully punished, but they'd all spend more money buying political decisions in favor of encryption (and spending money seems to be the only way to influence politicians in the US nowadays).

Freak_NL 11y ago
While I agree with the sentiment, I fear that for many software developers ensuring the continuity of their livelihood is more important — either by necessity or choice — than defending the right to privacy and the freedom to keep private records.
- xtian 11y ago
  Livelihood is something we build together, not something granted from above. To forget that is to cede all personal agency and integrity.
  - mistercow 11y ago
    That's a hard sell for those of us with children to support.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      Move to a cheaper house, save up six months expenses. If the issue isn't important enough to sacrifice your comfort for it, it won't go your way. Your children will grow up as subjects, rather than citizens.
    - xtian 11y ago
      Supporting your children extends beyond giving them a genome and physical sustenance. Genes haven't been the primary avenue of change in our species for at least a hundred thousand years. The significant things we pass on to future generations are our cultures, our languages, our ideas, our ways of life. Every moment we are building that inheritance. If we want to give your children and theirs a world where their hearts and minds are nurtured, where they are able to live with integrity and human-heartedness, then we're going to have to make some uncomfortable changes. I should note that I don't really have a strong opinion on the idea of a boycott. I'm just reacting to the feeling of impossibility that people always express whenever someone proposes a challenging idea. In my experience, that feeling is typically where we hide the simple solution to a problem.

cJ0th 11y ago

But where would you go? If the UK and the US proceed like this then, as with so many issues, the rest of the world will follow. Germany, for instance, looks rather pro privacy at the moment. But I am pretty sure they'd be some of the first to follow the UK/US.

StringyBob 11y ago
For the US/UK this is the thin end of the wedge. Germany has, in many people's lifetimes, been at the other end. Have a look at what the Stasi were up to in East Germany until 1989 to understand why Germans feel privacy is important.
- cJ0th 11y ago
  As a German I do know about what the Stasi did. The thing is that most Germans don't acknowledge the relationship between what was going on then and what is going on now. I don't know a single (German) person outside of tech who thinks anything they (ordinarily) do online or on their smartphone could be used against them in one way or another. Some may complain about the government but they didn't change their habits when it comes to using their smartphone or laptop. They don't realize that, for instance, every picture they add to facebook will train algorithms that could be used for all kind of purposes. President Gauck doesn't think it is valid to compare the Stasi and the NSA > Gauck wehrt sich gegen Vergleich der NSA mit der Stasi Das erklärt auch, warum er in dem Interview jeden Vergleich zwischen den Methoden der Stasi und den Aktivitäten der NSA weit zurückweist. Die Stasi habe wie jeder Geheimdienst in einer Diktatur "Krieg gegen das eigene Volk geführt". Sie habe die Bürger bespitzelt, um diese Bespitzelungen gegen die Bürger zu richten. Davon könne aktuell nicht die Rede sein. "Hier sprechen wir von einer Gefahr für die Demokratie innerhalb der Demokratie." http://www.nzz.ch/international/nsa-forschte-merkel-umfassender-aus-als-bisher-bekannt-1.18699776 http://www.nzz.ch/international/nsa-forschte-merkel-umfassen... And Chanchelor Merkel declared data the "raw material of the 21th century" and urged Germans to rethink their position on privacy > Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel hat Daten als "Rohstoffe des 21. Jahrhunderts" bezeichnet. "Hier müssen wir jetzt aufpassen, dass der Datenschutz nicht die Oberhand über die wirtschaftliche Verarbeitung gewinnt", sagte die CDU-Politikern am Montag in Berlin beim Verlegerkongress Publishers' Summit. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Merkel-Daten-sind-Rohstoffe-des-21-Jahrhunderts-2867735.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Merkel-Daten-sind-Roh... Both, Merkel and Gauck, grew up in the GDR!

vacri 11y ago

> What happens if all of the (semi-competent) developers suddenly either refuse to work or simply can't? Never going to happen, even in wild fantasies. Trying to get developers to all move in the same direction is like trying to herd cats.

voidz 11y ago
ok so we need a lot of food
zanny 11y ago
We can talk about collective developer action when developers actually collectively organize. Maybe all those IBM and Yahoo layoffs will consider the value of unionizing while fishing for new work in the next few months....
- nickff 11y ago
  IBM and Yahoo are sinking ships; becoming unionized to get job security there is the equivalent of lashing yourself to their mast, when you should just get in a lifeboat.

elorant 11y ago

The problem with a boycott of that kind is that it would take too long to have consequences feeled by the general public. It’s not like we could block roads and disrupt public transportation. While the whole world is relied on computers a very small percentage of everyday work is mission critical to need a constant maintenance and care by developers. From the other hand it could hurt businesses which isn’t our goal since most of these guys are probably already on our side. We should find something more targeted that could have a greater impact in a shorter timeframe.

calgoo 11y ago
What if we get the SysAdmins and NetOps guys to join? I believe that could be felt quite a lot more.
CM30 11y ago
I think they'd notice quite quickly if the whole of Google went offline for a week or so. Like literally, no search, no gmail, no maps, no anything. Now imagine if other large companies did the same, like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Heck, want to make a real effect? Have a boycott which takes AWS offline for a few weeks, including everything hosted on it. The consequences would become clear soon enough. Bonus points if the White House and Houses of Parliament sites were taken offline with it.
- elorant 11y ago
  Sure, but as I said in my parent comment in such a case we're hurting corporations. Why would we want to do that? Google isn't our enemy here, they're probably in the same boat as we're. Of course they could willingly participate which would be a game-changer but I seriously doubt they'd go in such extreme measures because it could alienate them in the eyes of the state.
  - krapp 11y ago
    >Google isn't our enemy here, they're probably in the same boat as we're. Google is the enemy. Like Apple, they're a PRISM participant, and while that doesn't necessarily mean they offer "direct and open access to all user data" like some believe, it still means they willingly collaborate with the NSA, because they're required and obligated to do so under the law. Any company subject to US law is also subject to NSLs, with which they can be forced to act as covert agents for the NSA. We're all in the same boat, but that's because the enemy is us. The entirety of the United States' IT and electronics industries is the enemy, here, and the victim.

narrator 11y ago

The history of civilization is full of battles over technology between the people and the government. New technology arrives that disrupts government functions and the government had to go about banning and controlling it. It's a pretty regular thing. The mandarins cracked down on tech development in China leading to stagnation. The Ottomans banned the printing press. The Japanese shut out all outside influence for a few hundred years. Now we ban encryption. Go figure.

oh_sigh 11y ago
There seems to be a difference between your examples and encryption though. All of your examples were developments that created positive value. AFAICT encryption in itself doesn't create positive value, it only prevents negative value. If, for example, our letters couldn't be opened, encryption would only be a waste of resources.
- emXdem 11y ago
  That's not true. Being able to programatically verify (via public private key) makes things like ssl/key authorities possible. That's a multi-billion dollar industry.
  - oh_sigh 11y ago
    Cryptographic signatures are not the same as encryption.
- nateabele 11y ago
  It is an undisputed historical fact that ubiquitous strong encryption was the primary enabler in the explosion of online commerce. What are you even talking about?
  - oh_sigh 11y ago
    Source?

7952 11y ago

It would be great to see large website blocking government IP addresses, even for a few days Why give access to people who are trying to attack the system?

bingus800 11y ago
Nah, just refuse to encrypt their shopping cart sessions. They don't really need TLS for entering that credit card, do they?
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  Obviously no company would do this but holy shit would that make the point. Just imaging Amazon, Apple, Google; practically everyone requiring government based IP addresses to go through HTTP for authentication, purchasing, etc and how quickly all of their data gets spilled onto the internet. I mean ultimately it would be a "dick move" anyway but it would drive the point home so quickly.
  - djillionsmix 11y ago
    Is there some reason why the government wouldn't be able to license the use of unadulterated crypto for purposes it doesn't give a shit about, like you transmitting your credit card number to online retailers, while mandating some form of government access in situations where it does give a shit, such as being able to access the data stored on disk-encrypted cell phones? I'm sincerely asking here, I don't know.
    - studentrob 11y ago
      Fair question. Sounds like you don't know much about encryption. I'll do my best. Encryption is software-based and is as available to people connected to the internet as checking out a book from the library. Using encryption is free, and writing software that makes use of encryption is something anyone could teach themselves. I think what you're getting at is, why can't we have some forms of encryption that have back doors for government, and other forms that have no back doors. Think about computer viruses. They are designed to infiltrate your system, and any system that is like yours. If a virus targets Windows 7 and infects your computer, then it would be able to infect any Windows 7 machine. The same is true for bugs or vulnerabilities within legitimate software. Say I run a WordPress site. The computer that serves my website runs WordPress 3.4, for example. Let's say a weakness is found in WordPress 3.4 that allows anyone using the username "jabberwocky" to log into my site and gain administrator privileges. This enables them to edit text and photos on my site. WordPress discovers this weakness and releases an upgrade to 3.5 which fixes the bug and no longer allows users to gain administrator status when logged in as "jabberwocky". If I don't upgrade my site to 3.5, my system is still vulnerable. Further, everyone knows about the weakness in WordPress 3.4 because the 3.5 release notes explain the reason for the upgrade. My site becomes an instant target for any hackers. If my business were based on this website it could really hurt my reputation, profits etc. if someone were to gain control of my site. What the government is asking Apple to do is allow them to login as "jabberwocky" whenever they have a warrant. By doing this, Apple enables anyone to login as "jabberwocky" so long as they have the special software which Apple is being asked to write. And, since the government is asking for this access permanently, Apple will never be allowed to modify this security weakness sufficiently so that it does not exist, because by court order it must exist. The final point I would make is that since encryption is so readily available, any user can download software that makes use of encrypted communications in less than a minute with an internet connection. Compelling Apple to weaken their encryption system does nothing to provide the DOJ with access to data within these other communication programs. Some examples are Signal, wickr and Telegram. Senator Lindsey Graham makes this point at the end of his questioning of Attorney General Loretta Lynch [1]. I hope you'll give it a listen. [1] https://youtu.be/uk4hYAwCdhU?t=1m44s https://youtu.be/uk4hYAwCdhU?t=1m44s

jasonkostempski 11y ago

While we're boycotting, we should all run for office and vote for each other.

stevetrewick 11y ago

>That just isn't how it works. That is exactly and precisely how it works. In a common law legal system like the UK everything is legal until it suddenly isn't because some act of legislation makes it so. There is no constitution to restrict what legislation the government may choose to enact. There is a body of EU law that has some bearing but much that is relevant here (e.g. Convention of Human Rights) either comes with or was enacted into UK law with 'except because crime or national security, think of the children' tagged onto every clause. Over just the last few decades UK governments have banned all manner of things, all of which were things people were doing every day. Hunting, smoking, various types of porn and 'legal highs' are some that immediately come to mind, but there are plenty more.