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What is the deal with the governments of the British Isles being so intrusive and privacy hostile? I'm always hearing about new laws that intrude on personal pr

What is the deal with the governments of the British Isles being so intrusive and privacy hostile? I'm always hearing about new laws that intrude on personal privacy while also establishing an extensive surveillance capability. What is it about the cultures of that place that make the people so accepting of such government overreach?

lbriner 5y ago
Most people are not accepting but there is only so much power you have over an elected government. Previous suggestions have been stopped though so you can kick up a stink sometimes and have the right results. I also don't think it is that unique to the UK. It was a multi-national attack that broke EncroChat and the Australians breaking An0m (maybe with US help). Some countries love privacy at all costs like Germany and Scandinavia, some don't even assume they have privacy like Iran and China and those in the middle, like the UK, want to pretend they have privacy and are principled until they need to solve a crime and then it goes out the window!
- ploika 5y ago
  Just for the avoidance of doubt, Ireland is not part of the UK.
reedjosh 5y ago
I can't really speak for them, but I keep seeing this in the US too. Individuals just don't seem to have any real recourse. These laws and systems are kafkaesque--there's just some system out there that determines the rules, and good luck finding a functioning way to push back. Also, here's one of my favorite fairly relevant quotes: > "We operate under the rule of law and are accountable for it. In some countries secret intelligence is used to control their people. In ours, it only exists to protect their freedoms." - William Hague (UK Politician) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-23053691 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-23053691
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  Maybe this is just my inner American, but what the Irish government is doing is tyrannical. The idea that you must render your secrets to the government just seems anathema to personal liberty. This must run afoul of some human rights commitments the UK has made, no? And, the doublespeak of the quote you mentioned is absolutely repugnant. Edit: I wrote UK government... I was mistaken and thought of Northern Ireland instead of the Republic of Ireland.
  - rand49an 5y ago
    While I'm sure UK police are after the same powers (or already have them!) Ireland isn't a part of the UK.
    - BitwiseFool 5y ago
      My apologies, for some reason my mind went to 'Northern Ireland' as I've come to expect this sort of thing from the UK.
      - HeckFeck 5y ago
        Easily done. The ROI aren't as different from the the UK as they like to think.
        rusk 5y ago
        England is a very different kind of place to most places I think you’ll find!
    - bitdivision 5y ago
      The UK does indeed already have similar powers under RIPA [0]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Po...
  - reedjosh 5y ago
prepend 5y ago
I’ve wondered the same thing but chalked it up to some sort of selection bias. I always remember Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 [0] and the story of how authoritarian British schools were. I guess there some sort of contingent for making lots of rules and demanding adherence. There’s a pretty great book called Albion’s Seed [1] by Fischer that goes into the four groups of British people that founded America. The “border” peoples of Scotland/north England were pretty anarchistic and moved to the colonies fleeing British rule. And I think there was quite a bit of rule that resulted in the people who don’t follow rules leaving Britain for the US/Australia/other colonies. So after a few hundred years, that perhaps had an effect on the type of people who stayed. [0] https://youtu.be/HrxX9TBj2zY https://youtu.be/HrxX9TBj2zY [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed
- astrange 5y ago
  > The “border” peoples of Scotland/north England were pretty anarchistic and moved to the colonies fleeing British rule. And they ended up in Appalachia because even the other colonies couldn't stand them and kicked them out.
varispeed 5y ago
It's the "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear" culture. People still trust authorities with their information and believe that nobody cares what kind of illnesses they have or what kind of porn they are into or how their body looks like or what they talked about with mates.
s_dev 5y ago
>What is the deal with the governments of the British Isles being so intrusive and privacy hostile? I don't consider Ireland to be a "British Isle" -- 26 counties out of 32 on the island are Irish. How and ever -- we see the US in the same light. You're so hostile to privacy laws like GDPR and we aren't etc.
- acta_non_verba 5y ago
  Bizarre comment. British isles is a geographic term, which is correct in this case. No one for a moment is suggesting that because of that you have to drink tea or invent the computer or anything else that is considered British.
- sdflhasjd 5y ago
  The "British Isles" is a geographic term encompassing Great Britain and Ireland, plus some smaller islands.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    You're correct, and I'm British, but it's not surprising to me that an Irishman would object to it. Besides, to us 'English Channel' is a geographic term; in France it's La Manche ('the sleeve'). (Having said that we do say 'Irish Sea'.)
  - borvo 5y ago
    Quite correct. Just like “GB” (“Great Britain” or “Grand Bretagne” in the original French) means “large Brittany”.
  - lucideer 5y ago
    This is technically correct, but no context is devoid of political overtones and there's very reasonable arguments for decolonising the terminology. "British Isles" is the widely accepted term internationally in large part due to the historical dominance of the British Empire, coupled with the ongoing influence of the British state internationally (particularly in the anglosphere). It is however not a generally preferred term within Ireland, which is worth noting alongside any technical facts about geography.
AlphaSite 5y ago
I think it’s partly down to more visibility since these are English speaking countries, so the dark underside is more exposed.
LatteLazy 5y ago
English law has basically no protections against search and seizure (no posion tree doctrine). So police are used to doing as they please and politicians like it too. The mathematical impossibility of breaking hard encryption is an afront to literally hundreds of years of entitlement.
foreigner 5y ago
Maybe it's socialism? It creates the feeling that we're all in it together.
dehrmann 5y ago
Random thought: they all have terrorist attacks in recent-ish memory.
- Macha 5y ago
  It's Limerick criminal gangs and the typical "think of the children" approach of using pedophiles to limit everyone's freedom that are used in rhetoric here way more than terrorists
  - ploika 5y ago
    The Limerick gangs were more or less dealt with about a decade ago. It's the likes of the Kinahans, and possibly some of the various dissident republican groups, who are much more of a target for this bill.
    - Macha 5y ago
      Of course, and we sent the largest organization covering up for pedophiles a nasty letter and let them continue to run schools. What's used in public discourse and what's at large are two different groups.
Sebb767 5y ago
The US is not much better. Germany [0] is not much better. This seems to be a general trend right now. If I had to guess, police has a hard time accessing anything on smartphones and PCs - which probably is a major holdback for them - and hardly anybody involved in the making of the legislature has enough technical understanding and/or political stake to defend the privacy side of things. [0] https://www.heise.de/news/Cyberbunker-Klausel-in-StPO-Durchsuchungen-kuenftig-auch-zur-Nachtzeit-6062828.html https://www.heise.de/news/Cyberbunker-Klausel-in-StPO-Durchs...
anigbrowl 5y ago
Look into the history. Rebellions of all kinds have been ruthlessly and brutally suppressed. The aristocracy is not as important as it used to be in Britain, but but it's still a power-centric society where those without have few choices open to them. Despite winning independence from Britain a century ago and having a clearly written constitution, Ireland kept a great deal of the legal and some of the social culture; following independence the informal power just moved towards the catholic church and (as always, everywhere) toward money.
lucideer 5y ago
> cultures of that place Aside from sensitivity around the (technically correct but the status quo should always be open to question) term "British Isles", even accepting that term geographically, conflating the islands culturally demonstrates a certain level of ignorance on the subject.
melesian 5y ago
Ireland is not a British isle. Irish police are unarmed and the country is not a surveillance state. However, there have been some high profile cases of murders committed by drug gangs who have used encrypted phones to put their communications beyond scrutiny / use in evidence. Ireland is a democracy and the public is perfectly able and willing to change govt if it sees fit (and it does so regularly). I think you'll find that in Ireland the people wonder WTF is wrong with the US that it could elect a cretin like Donald Trump to its highest office, denies healthcare to its citizens, tolerates vote suppression, electoral gerrymandering, mass shootings, endless racially motivated police assassinations, unlimited corporate expenditure in political campaigns etc. Ireland is fully signed up to the EU's GDPR which puts citizen's data rights on a far firmer footing than those of Americans.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  >Donald Trump to its highest office, denies healthcare to its citizens, tolerates vote suppression, electoral gerrymandering, mass shootings, endless racially motivated police assassinations, unlimited corporate expenditure in political campaigns You're attributing those to Trump? I guess that's what happens when all you get is government controlled media....
- haunter 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles >The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and over six thousand smaller islands.
  - miralize 5y ago
    > In Ireland, the term "British Isles" is controversial, and there are objections to its usage. The Government of Ireland does not officially recognise the term, and its embassy in London discourages its use.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  The term "encrypted phone" is meaningless and stupid. Do you use imessage, whatsapp, signal or any chat app that is currently thought of as "good" by tech or privacy people? Then you have an "encrypted phone". Does your phone have a lock code that is not easily hackable? Then you have an "encrypted phone". It'd be hard to find any person using a smartphone whos phone is not "encrypted".

lbriner 5y ago

Most people are not accepting but there is only so much power you have over an elected government. Previous suggestions have been stopped though so you can kick up a stink sometimes and have the right results. I also don't think it is that unique to the UK. It was a multi-national attack that broke EncroChat and the Australians breaking An0m (maybe with US help). Some countries love privacy at all costs like Germany and Scandinavia, some don't even assume they have privacy like Iran and China and those in the middle, like the UK, want to pretend they have privacy and are principled until they need to solve a crime and then it goes out the window!

ploika 5y ago
Just for the avoidance of doubt, Ireland is not part of the UK.

reedjosh 5y ago

I can't really speak for them, but I keep seeing this in the US too. Individuals just don't seem to have any real recourse. These laws and systems are kafkaesque--there's just some system out there that determines the rules, and good luck finding a functioning way to push back. Also, here's one of my favorite fairly relevant quotes: > "We operate under the rule of law and are accountable for it. In some countries secret intelligence is used to control their people. In ours, it only exists to protect their freedoms." - William Hague (UK Politician) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-23053691 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-23053691

BitwiseFool 5y ago
Maybe this is just my inner American, but what the Irish government is doing is tyrannical. The idea that you must render your secrets to the government just seems anathema to personal liberty. This must run afoul of some human rights commitments the UK has made, no? And, the doublespeak of the quote you mentioned is absolutely repugnant. Edit: I wrote UK government... I was mistaken and thought of Northern Ireland instead of the Republic of Ireland.
- rand49an 5y ago
  While I'm sure UK police are after the same powers (or already have them!) Ireland isn't a part of the UK.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    My apologies, for some reason my mind went to 'Northern Ireland' as I've come to expect this sort of thing from the UK.
    - HeckFeck 5y ago
      Easily done. The ROI aren't as different from the the UK as they like to think.
      - rusk 5y ago
        England is a very different kind of place to most places I think you’ll find!
  - bitdivision 5y ago
    The UK does indeed already have similar powers under RIPA [0]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Po...
- reedjosh 5y ago

prepend 5y ago

I’ve wondered the same thing but chalked it up to some sort of selection bias. I always remember Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 [0] and the story of how authoritarian British schools were. I guess there some sort of contingent for making lots of rules and demanding adherence. There’s a pretty great book called Albion’s Seed [1] by Fischer that goes into the four groups of British people that founded America. The “border” peoples of Scotland/north England were pretty anarchistic and moved to the colonies fleeing British rule. And I think there was quite a bit of rule that resulted in the people who don’t follow rules leaving Britain for the US/Australia/other colonies. So after a few hundred years, that perhaps had an effect on the type of people who stayed. [0] https://youtu.be/HrxX9TBj2zY https://youtu.be/HrxX9TBj2zY [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed

astrange 5y ago
> The “border” peoples of Scotland/north England were pretty anarchistic and moved to the colonies fleeing British rule. And they ended up in Appalachia because even the other colonies couldn't stand them and kicked them out.

varispeed 5y ago

It's the "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear" culture. People still trust authorities with their information and believe that nobody cares what kind of illnesses they have or what kind of porn they are into or how their body looks like or what they talked about with mates.

s_dev 5y ago

>What is the deal with the governments of the British Isles being so intrusive and privacy hostile? I don't consider Ireland to be a "British Isle" -- 26 counties out of 32 on the island are Irish. How and ever -- we see the US in the same light. You're so hostile to privacy laws like GDPR and we aren't etc.

acta_non_verba 5y ago
Bizarre comment. British isles is a geographic term, which is correct in this case. No one for a moment is suggesting that because of that you have to drink tea or invent the computer or anything else that is considered British.
sdflhasjd 5y ago
The "British Isles" is a geographic term encompassing Great Britain and Ireland, plus some smaller islands.
- OJFord 5y ago
  You're correct, and I'm British, but it's not surprising to me that an Irishman would object to it. Besides, to us 'English Channel' is a geographic term; in France it's La Manche ('the sleeve'). (Having said that we do say 'Irish Sea'.)
- borvo 5y ago
  Quite correct. Just like “GB” (“Great Britain” or “Grand Bretagne” in the original French) means “large Brittany”.
- lucideer 5y ago
  This is technically correct, but no context is devoid of political overtones and there's very reasonable arguments for decolonising the terminology. "British Isles" is the widely accepted term internationally in large part due to the historical dominance of the British Empire, coupled with the ongoing influence of the British state internationally (particularly in the anglosphere). It is however not a generally preferred term within Ireland, which is worth noting alongside any technical facts about geography.

AlphaSite 5y ago

I think it’s partly down to more visibility since these are English speaking countries, so the dark underside is more exposed.

LatteLazy 5y ago

English law has basically no protections against search and seizure (no posion tree doctrine). So police are used to doing as they please and politicians like it too. The mathematical impossibility of breaking hard encryption is an afront to literally hundreds of years of entitlement.

foreigner 5y ago

Maybe it's socialism? It creates the feeling that we're all in it together.

dehrmann 5y ago

Random thought: they all have terrorist attacks in recent-ish memory.

Macha 5y ago
It's Limerick criminal gangs and the typical "think of the children" approach of using pedophiles to limit everyone's freedom that are used in rhetoric here way more than terrorists
- ploika 5y ago
  The Limerick gangs were more or less dealt with about a decade ago. It's the likes of the Kinahans, and possibly some of the various dissident republican groups, who are much more of a target for this bill.
  - Macha 5y ago
    Of course, and we sent the largest organization covering up for pedophiles a nasty letter and let them continue to run schools. What's used in public discourse and what's at large are two different groups.

Sebb767 5y ago

The US is not much better. Germany [0] is not much better. This seems to be a general trend right now. If I had to guess, police has a hard time accessing anything on smartphones and PCs - which probably is a major holdback for them - and hardly anybody involved in the making of the legislature has enough technical understanding and/or political stake to defend the privacy side of things. [0] https://www.heise.de/news/Cyberbunker-Klausel-in-StPO-Durchsuchungen-kuenftig-auch-zur-Nachtzeit-6062828.html https://www.heise.de/news/Cyberbunker-Klausel-in-StPO-Durchs...

anigbrowl 5y ago

Look into the history. Rebellions of all kinds have been ruthlessly and brutally suppressed. The aristocracy is not as important as it used to be in Britain, but but it's still a power-centric society where those without have few choices open to them. Despite winning independence from Britain a century ago and having a clearly written constitution, Ireland kept a great deal of the legal and some of the social culture; following independence the informal power just moved towards the catholic church and (as always, everywhere) toward money.

lucideer 5y ago

> cultures of that place Aside from sensitivity around the (technically correct but the status quo should always be open to question) term "British Isles", even accepting that term geographically, conflating the islands culturally demonstrates a certain level of ignorance on the subject.

melesian 5y ago

Ireland is not a British isle. Irish police are unarmed and the country is not a surveillance state. However, there have been some high profile cases of murders committed by drug gangs who have used encrypted phones to put their communications beyond scrutiny / use in evidence. Ireland is a democracy and the public is perfectly able and willing to change govt if it sees fit (and it does so regularly). I think you'll find that in Ireland the people wonder WTF is wrong with the US that it could elect a cretin like Donald Trump to its highest office, denies healthcare to its citizens, tolerates vote suppression, electoral gerrymandering, mass shootings, endless racially motivated police assassinations, unlimited corporate expenditure in political campaigns etc. Ireland is fully signed up to the EU's GDPR which puts citizen's data rights on a far firmer footing than those of Americans.

CountDrewku 5y ago
>Donald Trump to its highest office, denies healthcare to its citizens, tolerates vote suppression, electoral gerrymandering, mass shootings, endless racially motivated police assassinations, unlimited corporate expenditure in political campaigns You're attributing those to Trump? I guess that's what happens when all you get is government controlled media....
haunter 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles >The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and over six thousand smaller islands.
- miralize 5y ago
  > In Ireland, the term "British Isles" is controversial, and there are objections to its usage. The Government of Ireland does not officially recognise the term, and its embassy in London discourages its use.
SahAssar 5y ago
The term "encrypted phone" is meaningless and stupid. Do you use imessage, whatsapp, signal or any chat app that is currently thought of as "good" by tech or privacy people? Then you have an "encrypted phone". Does your phone have a lock code that is not easily hackable? Then you have an "encrypted phone". It'd be hard to find any person using a smartphone whos phone is not "encrypted".