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Everytime I see anything about MI5 all I can think about is that article from Adam Curtis ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER http://www.bbc.co

by rtpg 13y ago

Everytime I see anything about MI5 all I can think about is that article from Adam Curtis ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER ). It's at the time reassuring (the agency is filled with people too incompetent to do any of the major conspiracies we think they're up to), but also bothering (their worldview is dangerous and is basically fearmongering). Listening to this, I feel like the difference between storage and actually looking at data is an important one. The view of the quasi-totality here seem to think it's the same, but I think the distinction is important. Especially when being looked at through search programs (and not human eyes), we run into the whole "Chinese room" problem: the program doesn't understand what it's looking at, so is it really "breaching" privacy? And what is the difference between your e-mails being in a locked box at an ISP or a locked box with the NSA if the key is in the hand of a judge anyways? Then again I'm more of the sort to think that if a judge agrees, then access to the info should be swift. Some people disagree with that.

BgSpnnrs 13y ago
Without wanting to be too facetious "Don't worry, we may be violating your privacy, but we're rubbish at it." isn't a particularly compelling defence. The problem with the locked box analogy is that my ISP isn't going to potentially scrutinise my data and decide that because I read stuff from all sorts of sources - including the blogs of subversives, activists, hackers, and political outliers (along with the thousands of other things I read online) that I should be considered a threat to a society I am part of, and could be considered a 'baddie', espescially given the UK's stupidly broad definitions of terrorism. Perhaps that is a slippery slope argument, but it's a valid one IMO especially given that the reason for excusing it is one that not many of us put much credit in (the omnipresent threat of terror and violence from fanatical foes). I'd sooner we just didn't go around making enemies.

by rtpg 13y ago

BgSpnnrs 13y ago

Without wanting to be too facetious "Don't worry, we may be violating your privacy, but we're rubbish at it." isn't a particularly compelling defence. The problem with the locked box analogy is that my ISP isn't going to potentially scrutinise my data and decide that because I read stuff from all sorts of sources - including the blogs of subversives, activists, hackers, and political outliers (along with the thousands of other things I read online) that I should be considered a threat to a society I am part of, and could be considered a 'baddie', espescially given the UK's stupidly broad definitions of terrorism. Perhaps that is a slippery slope argument, but it's a valid one IMO especially given that the reason for excusing it is one that not many of us put much credit in (the omnipresent threat of terror and violence from fanatical foes). I'd sooner we just didn't go around making enemies.