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Also, the USA is not alone in doing trumped-up bullshit to visitors. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65314605 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65314605 The French

Also, the USA is not alone in doing trumped-up bullshit to visitors. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65314605 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65314605 The French authorities did not like what a French publisher published about them. So they asked Britain to fuck about with one of the publisher's employees who was going to visit a book fair in London. They arrested the employee on terrorism charges, because they demanded to search his phone when he arrived in the UK, and he refused -- that's a crime, because the UK is a shit nation with evil laws. That should not be a crime.

wkat4242 2y ago
> Also, the USA is not alone in doing trumped-up bullshit I see what you did there :D But yeah. Other countries do it too and they should be called out. The government at that time in the UK was the Tories though and they aren't really all that different from the Project 2025/Heritage Foundation guys. Also very conservative.
- amiga386 2y ago
  I'm afraid to say this is bipartisan. The law the Frenchman was charged under - the Terrorism Act 2000 - was passed by Labour. Both Labour and the Tories are rather authoritarian. However, on left-rightness, both Labour and the Tories are to the left of the US Democrats, who are themselves left of the US Republicans. The specific issue of it being made illegal to not reveal your passwords/keys caused an enormous outrage in the UK, but the Labour government passed it anyway. Activists sent Jack Straw, the home secretary at the time, encrypted files on disk, and said that because the files are now in his possession, they want to demand he decrypt them, and because he definitely cannot - he never knew the password - he should go to jail for two years under his proposed law. Jack Straw's response to this was not "I see, what a stupid law, let me get rid of it". His response was to write into the law "this law doesn't apply to government ministers"
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Ah I didn't know :( I see more conservative (anti-LGBTIQ+ in particular) talking points from tories though. The UK is also on my list of "never travel to" countries anyway, it has been since Brexit and the xenophobic sentiments that empowered. Really the "taking back control" was really a euphemism for "less black faces on our streets". At least it seemed that way when I spoke to some of the more outspoken Brexit proponents in my circle. They turned totally rabiate anti-immigrant. All people that were decent before, by the way. Obviously I will never go to the US again either. Though nobody has asked me to go there. I did get asked by work to go to some Google thing in London and I refused for that reason which was totally ok.
    - amiga386 2y ago
      > Really the "taking back control" was really a euphemism for "less black faces on our streets". I think you need a better understanding of the UK. Brexit was a "fuck you" to the white Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian faces on our streets. While the political right of the UK had been "Eurosceptic" since losing the 1975 referendum, and there was the Cambridge Analytica scandal... the massive popularity of UKIP that gave rise to the Brexit was backlash against the mass immigration from the poorer eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The Labour government at that time imposed no constraints on migration while all other EU countries (save Ireland and Sweden) did. It was a deliberate choice, partly to boost GDP and partly to "rub the right's nose in diversity" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8326501.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8326501.stm) And now that Brexit has happened, we have massively more immigration from (South) Asia and Africa. We replaced white faces with brown and black faces. Therefore, "taking back control" must have meant "we want more black faces on our streets"? (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7783/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...)
      - lifestyleguru 2y ago
        I feel people from post-Communist countries heavily underestimated the importance of labour law and social systems for the British. They were extremely cynical towards these, while for British both are part of their national identity as the industrial revolution took place on their soil. The competition on labour market was indeed the strongest argument that British populace picked up while voting for Brexit. The "white faces" and "black faces" dispute is irrelevant in UK, because in the racist "theories" Poles, Irish, and many others are not even white, while people from the former colonies are their countrymen. Did I earn my UK settled status with this comment?

wkat4242 2y ago

> Also, the USA is not alone in doing trumped-up bullshit I see what you did there :D But yeah. Other countries do it too and they should be called out. The government at that time in the UK was the Tories though and they aren't really all that different from the Project 2025/Heritage Foundation guys. Also very conservative.

amiga386 2y ago
I'm afraid to say this is bipartisan. The law the Frenchman was charged under - the Terrorism Act 2000 - was passed by Labour. Both Labour and the Tories are rather authoritarian. However, on left-rightness, both Labour and the Tories are to the left of the US Democrats, who are themselves left of the US Republicans. The specific issue of it being made illegal to not reveal your passwords/keys caused an enormous outrage in the UK, but the Labour government passed it anyway. Activists sent Jack Straw, the home secretary at the time, encrypted files on disk, and said that because the files are now in his possession, they want to demand he decrypt them, and because he definitely cannot - he never knew the password - he should go to jail for two years under his proposed law. Jack Straw's response to this was not "I see, what a stupid law, let me get rid of it". His response was to write into the law "this law doesn't apply to government ministers"
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Ah I didn't know :( I see more conservative (anti-LGBTIQ+ in particular) talking points from tories though. The UK is also on my list of "never travel to" countries anyway, it has been since Brexit and the xenophobic sentiments that empowered. Really the "taking back control" was really a euphemism for "less black faces on our streets". At least it seemed that way when I spoke to some of the more outspoken Brexit proponents in my circle. They turned totally rabiate anti-immigrant. All people that were decent before, by the way. Obviously I will never go to the US again either. Though nobody has asked me to go there. I did get asked by work to go to some Google thing in London and I refused for that reason which was totally ok.
  - amiga386 2y ago
    > Really the "taking back control" was really a euphemism for "less black faces on our streets". I think you need a better understanding of the UK. Brexit was a "fuck you" to the white Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian faces on our streets. While the political right of the UK had been "Eurosceptic" since losing the 1975 referendum, and there was the Cambridge Analytica scandal... the massive popularity of UKIP that gave rise to the Brexit was backlash against the mass immigration from the poorer eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The Labour government at that time imposed no constraints on migration while all other EU countries (save Ireland and Sweden) did. It was a deliberate choice, partly to boost GDP and partly to "rub the right's nose in diversity" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8326501.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8326501.stm) And now that Brexit has happened, we have massively more immigration from (South) Asia and Africa. We replaced white faces with brown and black faces. Therefore, "taking back control" must have meant "we want more black faces on our streets"? (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7783/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...)
    - lifestyleguru 2y ago
      I feel people from post-Communist countries heavily underestimated the importance of labour law and social systems for the British. They were extremely cynical towards these, while for British both are part of their national identity as the industrial revolution took place on their soil. The competition on labour market was indeed the strongest argument that British populace picked up while voting for Brexit. The "white faces" and "black faces" dispute is irrelevant in UK, because in the racist "theories" Poles, Irish, and many others are not even white, while people from the former colonies are their countrymen. Did I earn my UK settled status with this comment?