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I find this deeply worrying, but among the people I work with and my immediate circle of friends and acquaintances I am in the minority. In my experience, peopl

I find this deeply worrying, but among the people I work with and my immediate circle of friends and acquaintances I am in the minority. In my experience, people just don't care that much (a fact which I find very, very sad and troubling). My partner for example who is an otherwise intelligent woman doesn't really care - her 12 year old son even less so. In fact, I'm pretty sure he will be part of the generation that will grow up to regard privacy as some sort of slightly weird, exotic commodity. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and for a chunk of my life we lived with this sort of government intrusion - nay, we expected it. We expected letters from abroad to be opened and read, we expected telephone calls to be listened to and so on. Obviously, there was no judicial oversight. I remember we looked at the West with something akin to awe and longing: in the West, they don't read your mail, they don't snoop on your calls and sure as st they don't confiscate subversive magazines sent from abroad. It was like a fairy tale; in the West, they took your rights seriously. 30 years on, I look at the UK, my adopted home like a lover who fell out of love with the object of his desire. It turns out that when presented with the technical means to do so, the West is just as keen to eavesdrop and hoover up all your data: emails, phone calls, text messages, the lot. Freedom and privacy are like a sausage comrades: you keep slicing at it until there's nothing left!

aivisol 6y ago
I share your pain, having similar background. It is probably not technical means, they always existed, the telephones could be listened to, and letters could be always opened. Forgetting the history and not learning from it. The West has lived in more or less peaceful democracy since WW2, two full generations have changed, and the memory has faded. We, easterners are still the generation which grew up in totalitarian regimes, we do still remember it.
- zaarn 6y ago
  On the other hand, Poland and Ukraine are currently going down the path of forming a totalitarian regime, so I'm not sure if this holds as much in practise.
  - caskstrength 6y ago
    Can you elaborate regarding "totalitarian regime" in Ukraine? I don't like our current president and didn't vote for him, but I don't see anything totalitarian about him.
    - zaarn 6y ago
      Mostly blocking the EU from doing anything about Poland, which is deep in there, and heading there itself (and Poland blocking the EU from doing anything about that). It's not as bad as poland yet but it's getting there, slowly.
      - caskstrength 6y ago
        Sorry but it is very hard to understand anything in your comment. Ukraine is blocking EU from doing something about Poland? How? Ukraine is not in EU and can't block anything. Also, it seems you are not willing to expand on "getting there"...
  - aivisol 6y ago
    Does Poland implement surveillance of their citizens in any excessive way? Just asking, as I do not know. The fact that the government is right-wing alone does not automatically mean it is going down the path of totalitarianism.
    - zaarn 6y ago
      Poland prevents the opposition from being able to take part in the government and pursues minority groups (political or otherwise), a totalitarian government doesn't require surveillance but I do recall from some newsreport some time ago that they approved quite wide ranging powers to the police.
      - aivisol 6y ago
        > prevents the opposition from being able to take part in the government This is definitely not specific to Poland, and unfortunately very typical across entire political spectrum and countries. I cannot quickly recall any European country where opposition is given meaningful part in government. > totalitarian government doesn't require surveillance I might disagree with you on this. That is what actually is very much required. As said, if you take away dislike for left or right and look from politically neutral point of view, you can see that power corrupts politicians regardless of their affiliations.
TomMarius 6y ago
People like you, who care about freedom and privacy, exist. I am also from behind the Iron Curtain, albeit I was born some years after it has fallen - fortunately, but the experience was ingrained in my parents. IMHO the problem is that people like us are distributed around the world, which puts us in a minority anywhere; we need to group up and watch each other's backs.
tomatocracy 6y ago
I'm a native Brit and whilst I agree our national lack of care about freedom is concerning I think it's slightly more nuanced than that. My view is that people here are far too trusting of those in authority, and in particular counter-terrorist police and security services personnel. The attitude seems to be "if they think they need this then they know best". The collective psyche seems to take more comfort in the moral character of the people given the powers than in the safeguards against misuse. On the positive side, almost noone I know thinks that it's appropriate that local councils or the Food Standards Agency have these powers. Those parts of government are largely viewed as "nannying busybodies" and the "nannying" bits of government are mostly distrusted - there does remain a British sense of freedom. What's worrying though is that people don't seem to believe that minor agencies actually have been given these powers. When I've had conversations with people about this the reaction is "you're just exaggerating to make a point" or "they won't really do that, you're just concocting a far-fetched scenario that's technically legal but wouldn't happen in practice".
- hlandau 6y ago
  I distinctly recall cases decades ago (but after the passage of RIPA 2000) of councils trying to use investigatory powers on things like, (I think I'm remembering this right) parents suspected of applying for schools outside their catchment area by lying about where they live. The hard examples of incredibly petty abuse by local councils, which actually happened, are out there if you want to go looking for them.
  - tomatocracy 6y ago
    Yes. Some councils paid private investigators to follow and photograph families to try to "prove" that they weren't really living in the catchment areas for certain schools but had just rented properties as a postbox address. So not electronic surveillance as such but powers that they were indeed using under RIPA 2000. I've tried pointing that out to people in the past (when the post Snowden legislation was being scrutinized by Parliament to try to encourage people to write to their MPs about it) and the reaction tended to be "see, they got caught and hardly any of them were doing it anyway so it proves that the system works". It's depressing.
DanBC 6y ago
>We expected letters from abroad to be opened and read, we expected telephone calls to be listened to and so on. Just checking that you know "communications data" in RIPA excludes the content of the message, and it refers only to the meta data?
- arpa 6y ago
  Metadata is as telling as data.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    Yes, absolutely, I agree. That's why I find the article so frustrating. "Here's a list of all the organisations that can get a warrant to get your metadata" would be a good, interesting story and we (us in the UK) need to have that discussion and hold politicians to account. That job - holding MPs to account - is made harder by stories like this, because people write letters saying "stop reading my emails" and they get a reply saying "we never were reading your emails".
ta1771 6y ago
They don't care because they don't truly know the depth of the implications.
just-trolling 6y ago
Waaaayback I saw an Ad in an Motorist-Magazine saying. 'a Thousand Miles can be like a hundred' OT...but...best ^^

aivisol 6y ago

I share your pain, having similar background. It is probably not technical means, they always existed, the telephones could be listened to, and letters could be always opened. Forgetting the history and not learning from it. The West has lived in more or less peaceful democracy since WW2, two full generations have changed, and the memory has faded. We, easterners are still the generation which grew up in totalitarian regimes, we do still remember it.

zaarn 6y ago
On the other hand, Poland and Ukraine are currently going down the path of forming a totalitarian regime, so I'm not sure if this holds as much in practise.
- caskstrength 6y ago
  Can you elaborate regarding "totalitarian regime" in Ukraine? I don't like our current president and didn't vote for him, but I don't see anything totalitarian about him.
  - zaarn 6y ago
    Mostly blocking the EU from doing anything about Poland, which is deep in there, and heading there itself (and Poland blocking the EU from doing anything about that). It's not as bad as poland yet but it's getting there, slowly.
    - caskstrength 6y ago
      Sorry but it is very hard to understand anything in your comment. Ukraine is blocking EU from doing something about Poland? How? Ukraine is not in EU and can't block anything. Also, it seems you are not willing to expand on "getting there"...
- aivisol 6y ago
  Does Poland implement surveillance of their citizens in any excessive way? Just asking, as I do not know. The fact that the government is right-wing alone does not automatically mean it is going down the path of totalitarianism.
  - zaarn 6y ago
    Poland prevents the opposition from being able to take part in the government and pursues minority groups (political or otherwise), a totalitarian government doesn't require surveillance but I do recall from some newsreport some time ago that they approved quite wide ranging powers to the police.
    - aivisol 6y ago
      > prevents the opposition from being able to take part in the government This is definitely not specific to Poland, and unfortunately very typical across entire political spectrum and countries. I cannot quickly recall any European country where opposition is given meaningful part in government. > totalitarian government doesn't require surveillance I might disagree with you on this. That is what actually is very much required. As said, if you take away dislike for left or right and look from politically neutral point of view, you can see that power corrupts politicians regardless of their affiliations.

TomMarius 6y ago

People like you, who care about freedom and privacy, exist. I am also from behind the Iron Curtain, albeit I was born some years after it has fallen - fortunately, but the experience was ingrained in my parents. IMHO the problem is that people like us are distributed around the world, which puts us in a minority anywhere; we need to group up and watch each other's backs.

tomatocracy 6y ago

I'm a native Brit and whilst I agree our national lack of care about freedom is concerning I think it's slightly more nuanced than that. My view is that people here are far too trusting of those in authority, and in particular counter-terrorist police and security services personnel. The attitude seems to be "if they think they need this then they know best". The collective psyche seems to take more comfort in the moral character of the people given the powers than in the safeguards against misuse. On the positive side, almost noone I know thinks that it's appropriate that local councils or the Food Standards Agency have these powers. Those parts of government are largely viewed as "nannying busybodies" and the "nannying" bits of government are mostly distrusted - there does remain a British sense of freedom. What's worrying though is that people don't seem to believe that minor agencies actually have been given these powers. When I've had conversations with people about this the reaction is "you're just exaggerating to make a point" or "they won't really do that, you're just concocting a far-fetched scenario that's technically legal but wouldn't happen in practice".

hlandau 6y ago
I distinctly recall cases decades ago (but after the passage of RIPA 2000) of councils trying to use investigatory powers on things like, (I think I'm remembering this right) parents suspected of applying for schools outside their catchment area by lying about where they live. The hard examples of incredibly petty abuse by local councils, which actually happened, are out there if you want to go looking for them.
- tomatocracy 6y ago
  Yes. Some councils paid private investigators to follow and photograph families to try to "prove" that they weren't really living in the catchment areas for certain schools but had just rented properties as a postbox address. So not electronic surveillance as such but powers that they were indeed using under RIPA 2000. I've tried pointing that out to people in the past (when the post Snowden legislation was being scrutinized by Parliament to try to encourage people to write to their MPs about it) and the reaction tended to be "see, they got caught and hardly any of them were doing it anyway so it proves that the system works". It's depressing.

DanBC 6y ago

>We expected letters from abroad to be opened and read, we expected telephone calls to be listened to and so on. Just checking that you know "communications data" in RIPA excludes the content of the message, and it refers only to the meta data?

arpa 6y ago
Metadata is as telling as data.
- DanBC 6y ago
  Yes, absolutely, I agree. That's why I find the article so frustrating. "Here's a list of all the organisations that can get a warrant to get your metadata" would be a good, interesting story and we (us in the UK) need to have that discussion and hold politicians to account. That job - holding MPs to account - is made harder by stories like this, because people write letters saying "stop reading my emails" and they get a reply saying "we never were reading your emails".

ta1771 6y ago

They don't care because they don't truly know the depth of the implications.

just-trolling 6y ago

Waaaayback I saw an Ad in an Motorist-Magazine saying. 'a Thousand Miles can be like a hundred' OT...but...best ^^