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>> "Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship." How

>> "Or, the fools who are running away from one threat, US surveillance, right into the arms of a vastly more serious threat, local government censorship." How do you judge which is more serious? For example you mentioned the UK. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. ISP's have to block The Pirate Bay (easy to get around through a proxy) and when you sign up for internet some ISP's ask "do you want us to run our filtering software to protect your children from porn?". You say "no" and they don't filter. Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does.

grey-area 13y ago
Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does. The UK has surpassed the US in surveillance - the Tempora program attempts to capture all traffic in the UK and store it as long as possible. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc).
- Toenex 13y ago
  That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc). Sorry are you suggesting that we in the UK can't have an open discussion on surveillance?
  - grey-area 13y ago
    Yes.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Right. They're only filtering for porn and piracy, no big deal of course. But then again, the NSA is only looking for terrorists, right? If you're not a terrorist, then that's no big deal either. Right? Do you understand the problem or do I need to explain more clearly?
Digit-Al 13y ago
I too live in the UK, and it seems to me you are forgetting two things. Number one is the UK governments complicity in spying on UK citizens; and number two is that once the systems are in place to filter porn (and lets not forget how badly they will probably perform), who knows what else they will start censoring. [edit: grey-area has said it better than me]
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  I definitely have a problem with UK spying - and I didn't forget about it. I was responding to the parents idea that local government censorship is much more serious than the extreme surveillance we've recently been made aware of. I'm more worried about the surveillance than the censorship. Obviously with the censorship we have the problem you've mentioned ("who knows what else they will start censoring") but I think that's something citizens actually have a chance fighting against. The internet isn't the only way of distributing information. If the government wants to censor something it's going to be very, very hard. As we've seen with the surveillance there is little we can do - the governments aren't listening to their citizens and doing something as extreme as stopping using the internet isn't enough to stop yourself being surveilled.

grey-area 13y ago

Those things don't bother me at all. US surveillance does. The UK has surpassed the US in surveillance - the Tempora program attempts to capture all traffic in the UK and store it as long as possible. The only censorship/filtering here is for two things: piracy and porn. That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc).

Toenex 13y ago
That's not quite true - along with self-censorship, there are huge areas (for example surveillance) which cannot be discussed in an open way in the UK because of government pressure (D-Notices, threats of legal action etc). Sorry are you suggesting that we in the UK can't have an open discussion on surveillance?
- grey-area 13y ago
  Yes.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

Right. They're only filtering for porn and piracy, no big deal of course. But then again, the NSA is only looking for terrorists, right? If you're not a terrorist, then that's no big deal either. Right? Do you understand the problem or do I need to explain more clearly?

Digit-Al 13y ago

I too live in the UK, and it seems to me you are forgetting two things. Number one is the UK governments complicity in spying on UK citizens; and number two is that once the systems are in place to filter porn (and lets not forget how badly they will probably perform), who knows what else they will start censoring. [edit: grey-area has said it better than me]

k-mcgrady 13y ago
I definitely have a problem with UK spying - and I didn't forget about it. I was responding to the parents idea that local government censorship is much more serious than the extreme surveillance we've recently been made aware of. I'm more worried about the surveillance than the censorship. Obviously with the censorship we have the problem you've mentioned ("who knows what else they will start censoring") but I think that's something citizens actually have a chance fighting against. The internet isn't the only way of distributing information. If the government wants to censor something it's going to be very, very hard. As we've seen with the surveillance there is little we can do - the governments aren't listening to their citizens and doing something as extreme as stopping using the internet isn't enough to stop yourself being surveilled.