4 ms·

Can someone from the UK please explain what is up with your government officials? How do they get away with passing such unpopular, draconian bills? It just see

Can someone from the UK please explain what is up with your government officials? How do they get away with passing such unpopular, draconian bills? It just seems bizarre that they could go against the will of the average person so blatantly. Are there "people on the street" who support this charter? Why does England pass such harsh, invasive surveillance laws aimed squarely at their own people? And why does it seem like the Lords (or whoever it is that is passing them) just ignore the cries from their own constituents? I'm sure that I see things tainted through American-goggles but it sure seems sometimes like it's not really a representative-style government.

rlpb 10y ago
It's generally justified because "we must do something about the terrorists". Law enforcement agencies claim they need this. In our post-truth world, evidence is not required, and balance doesn't matter. The "terrorist" angle is enough. > Are there "people on the street" who support this charter? I believe so, yes. People are too comfortable and the media scare them about terrorists. State-sponsored abuse of citizens and the need for balance when giving the state powers have been forgotten about.
zazen 10y ago
I think most people outside the tech bubble just don't see the importance of protecting privacy. In the USA, I think there isn't that much popular opposition to the NSA? Even after Snowdon? Similar in the UK. Most people just seem to think that if it might help catch some terrorists, then _shrug_.
mmbaghdad 10y ago
People don't care cuz they don't think that it'll ever be forced on them "I don't do anything wrong why should I care?". Plus they don't think much about the gravity of the situation, John Oliver did a nice take on this in the Snowden interview episode.
mmbaghdad 10y ago
People don't care cuz they don't think that it'll ever be forced on them "I don't do anything wrong why should I care?". Plus they don't think much about the gravity of the situation, John Oliver did a nice take on this in the Snowden interview episode.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Can someone from the US please explain what's up with your government.
- undesignated 10y ago
  It's evidently a power and money grab. See: Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money' http://www.dw.com/en/binney-the-nsas-main-motives-power-and-money/a-17862571 http://www.dw.com/en/binney-the-nsas-main-motives-power-and-... He designed it, and then blew the whistle.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
Hey, the USA passed the PATRIOT act with a very strong majority in the House and almost unanimously in the Senate. People just simply don't care. "If I've done nothing wrong, I've got nothing to hide", they say. People support this thing, because they think it helps stop "the terrorists". As John Key said in here in New Zealand, people care more about snapper fishing quotas than the GCSB (our equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ). And it's true. Government surveillance is too abstract for the average citizen to care about or notice.
rolodato 10y ago
The truth is that the vast majority of people will not be affected by this law passing, despite it having serious ethical issues. We live in a post-Snowden world and nothing has changed much for common people. This combined with the justification to "catch terrorists" presented to a non-technical audience means that hardly anyone will care.
grey-area 10y ago
Hard to say, probably they are under intense pressure from gchq to legalise and normalise activity which was recently found to be illegal. Of course, since gchq has been doing this for decades, including to all sorts of officials, they probably have an interesting file on all of them. It's not a particularly popular measure with the public, I think indifference is the best description of popular opinion.
djmobley 10y ago
In fairness to this legislation, it was partly introduced to replace a maze of anachronistic, impenetrable and incomprehensible statutes which the intelligence agencies in the UK had been exploiting for decades. In the wake of the Snowden revelations, the UK government was advised to provide a more solid legal footing for its intelligence activities.
amouat 10y ago
Because they can just say "to stop terrorism" and get away with whatever they want. It won't be unpopular with the majority of the (uninformed) public. P.S. Please don't say "England" when you mean UK. And I think you mean MPs, not Lords (which is a different house that isn't elected and just exists to confuse things).
TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago
It seems like a lot of people believe (and I believe they are at least partly right) that GCHQ already captures this data as a matter of course, and the new law just legitimises it. They further imagine that GCHQ are only interested in James Bond style espionage and high level terrorism. You'd need to be plotting something at the level of 9/11 to even raise an eyebrow from them. "Of course, under the new law these powers are expanded, but that's fine - after all, GCHQ have far bigger concerns than that dodgy looking brown bloke who lives down the street, but if local police had the same access to information, they'd be far more effective. Sure, it means my internet history is logged as well, but even if I occasionally download a dodgy movie, the signal/noise ration means they're not going to look unless they have a reason to, so why should I care?" A lot of people in this country are under the impression that the law is too soft, and are widely in support of stronger enforcement and better detection, and this will continue until it starts to directly affect them. For example, my local newspaper had an article about an 18 year old who was prosecuted because he had child porn on his phone and had consensual sex with a 15 year old when he was 17. The comments were unanimously calling him a vile paedophile and expressing outrage at the non-custodial nature of his sentence. For all you can tell from the article, it could just as easily be his slightly younger girlfriend and a few rude selfies. Still illegal, yes, but a far cry from anything I'd call abuse.

rlpb 10y ago

It's generally justified because "we must do something about the terrorists". Law enforcement agencies claim they need this. In our post-truth world, evidence is not required, and balance doesn't matter. The "terrorist" angle is enough. > Are there "people on the street" who support this charter? I believe so, yes. People are too comfortable and the media scare them about terrorists. State-sponsored abuse of citizens and the need for balance when giving the state powers have been forgotten about.

zazen 10y ago

I think most people outside the tech bubble just don't see the importance of protecting privacy. In the USA, I think there isn't that much popular opposition to the NSA? Even after Snowdon? Similar in the UK. Most people just seem to think that if it might help catch some terrorists, then _shrug_.

mmbaghdad 10y ago

People don't care cuz they don't think that it'll ever be forced on them "I don't do anything wrong why should I care?". Plus they don't think much about the gravity of the situation, John Oliver did a nice take on this in the Snowden interview episode.

mmbaghdad 10y ago

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

Can someone from the US please explain what's up with your government.

undesignated 10y ago
It's evidently a power and money grab. See: Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money' http://www.dw.com/en/binney-the-nsas-main-motives-power-and-money/a-17862571 http://www.dw.com/en/binney-the-nsas-main-motives-power-and-... He designed it, and then blew the whistle.

toomanybeersies 10y ago

Hey, the USA passed the PATRIOT act with a very strong majority in the House and almost unanimously in the Senate. People just simply don't care. "If I've done nothing wrong, I've got nothing to hide", they say. People support this thing, because they think it helps stop "the terrorists". As John Key said in here in New Zealand, people care more about snapper fishing quotas than the GCSB (our equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ). And it's true. Government surveillance is too abstract for the average citizen to care about or notice.

rolodato 10y ago

The truth is that the vast majority of people will not be affected by this law passing, despite it having serious ethical issues. We live in a post-Snowden world and nothing has changed much for common people. This combined with the justification to "catch terrorists" presented to a non-technical audience means that hardly anyone will care.

grey-area 10y ago

Hard to say, probably they are under intense pressure from gchq to legalise and normalise activity which was recently found to be illegal. Of course, since gchq has been doing this for decades, including to all sorts of officials, they probably have an interesting file on all of them. It's not a particularly popular measure with the public, I think indifference is the best description of popular opinion.

djmobley 10y ago

In fairness to this legislation, it was partly introduced to replace a maze of anachronistic, impenetrable and incomprehensible statutes which the intelligence agencies in the UK had been exploiting for decades. In the wake of the Snowden revelations, the UK government was advised to provide a more solid legal footing for its intelligence activities.

amouat 10y ago

Because they can just say "to stop terrorism" and get away with whatever they want. It won't be unpopular with the majority of the (uninformed) public. P.S. Please don't say "England" when you mean UK. And I think you mean MPs, not Lords (which is a different house that isn't elected and just exists to confuse things).

TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago

It seems like a lot of people believe (and I believe they are at least partly right) that GCHQ already captures this data as a matter of course, and the new law just legitimises it. They further imagine that GCHQ are only interested in James Bond style espionage and high level terrorism. You'd need to be plotting something at the level of 9/11 to even raise an eyebrow from them. "Of course, under the new law these powers are expanded, but that's fine - after all, GCHQ have far bigger concerns than that dodgy looking brown bloke who lives down the street, but if local police had the same access to information, they'd be far more effective. Sure, it means my internet history is logged as well, but even if I occasionally download a dodgy movie, the signal/noise ration means they're not going to look unless they have a reason to, so why should I care?" A lot of people in this country are under the impression that the law is too soft, and are widely in support of stronger enforcement and better detection, and this will continue until it starts to directly affect them. For example, my local newspaper had an article about an 18 year old who was prosecuted because he had child porn on his phone and had consensual sex with a 15 year old when he was 17. The comments were unanimously calling him a vile paedophile and expressing outrage at the non-custodial nature of his sentence. For all you can tell from the article, it could just as easily be his slightly younger girlfriend and a few rude selfies. Still illegal, yes, but a far cry from anything I'd call abuse.