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Britons: You Have 72 Hours to Stop the Snooper's Charter

700 points by sinak 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
Well I am drunk, so my ex Deputy PM gets the alcohol version of constituency letters Attn: Lord Prescott House of Lords Saturday 24 January 2015 Paul R Brian 18 Regent Way Kings Hill Kent ME19 4EB Paul@mikadosoftware.com 07540456115 Dear Lord Prescott, On Monday you have the opportunity to oppose a bill forcing ISPs to hold excessive amounts of private information in the hope some will be useful in the fight against crime and political crime. This information may indeed be useful, but allowing only police and intelligence services to access it steps down the wrong path. Please consider opposing this bill until sufficient steps can be put in place to allow full and unfettered access to everyone's data - by everyone. A kingdom of the blind policed by the sighted is not free. A kingdom where all have eyes is equal, and can strive towards free. Yours sincerely, Paul R Brian
- kordless 12y ago
  Assume I live in a rather secure hole underground, by myself. There are very few things I can do, short of connecting to the outside world and interacting with something in an illegal manner, that can constitute a crime. Maybe I build something that can harm someone remotely, but that requires intent to do something to interact with the outside world, so I'm discounting that here. I'm talking about doing something in my own hole, by myself, with no intent of leaving or interacting with anyone else. Should the data that constitutes my actions be available to 'everyone'? I argue it does not. It's not your data. It's my data. Now if I decide to leave my hole and go out into the world and interact with others, things get more complicated. If there is an opportunity where my information becomes entangled with others, I'm all for sharing it with everyone, with one caveat. I'd like to know who accessed my data, and if they accessed it simultaneously with other people's data, I'd like to know their data as well. I'm down with charging for it as well. Keeps the costs of doing surveillance on everyone high. BTW, I'm well aware of the dilemma you are attempting to put your Lord into here. I just don't think it's that easy to dispel.
  - estel 12y ago
    I like the idea of Prezza being lifeisstillgood's own Lord
    - lifeisstillgood 12y ago
      My own, personal, Jesus. With Jags :-)
  - lifeisstillgood 12y ago
    I'm up for charging for personal data, for making entangled data available and many other options - what I don't see is a binary choice between "we need access to everyone's data to catch the bad guys" and "liberty means anonymity" Neither seem correct in our new world, and one of the many problems with this salvo in the "2nd crypto war" is it assumes the fight is on those grounds. I think that means I am agreeing with you. Do you get cable in your hole? It sounds like a nice place to retreat to :-)
    - kordless 12y ago
      If you consider personal data as unknown to everyone and public data known, it sorta ends up looking like randomness and order, with the opportunity for chaos to exist in between.
isaacwaller 12y ago
What a ridiculous clickbait headline from the EFF. The truth is buried 7 paragraphs down: The amendments announced on Thursday will be formally included into the bill on Monday, in a committee meeting that was not planned to include a vote. The Lords will then have two more minor opportunities to debate the content of the bill before it is passed onto the elected House of Commons in its entirety for what is expected to be a simple up/down vote. Britain's members of parliament are currently distracted as they prepare for nationwide elections in May, which means it is highly likely that a major anti-terrorism bill like this will collect enough votes to pass.
- hanoz 12y ago
  Your cited "buried truth" is more alarming than the headline.
  - estel 12y ago
    Why's that more alarming? "72 hours to stop the bill" is pretty alarming, but with the bill still in committee, there's still a a little longer for it to go yet. The third reading is scheduled in a fortnight.
    - dannyobrien 12y ago
      Hi, Danny O'Brien from EFF, and the person who wrote the headline and the paragraph. I'd say the headline is actually in this case more accurate, but I didn't really want to add another six paragraphs of insider politics to the blog post to explain why. Long-form HN comment readers are a different matter, of course, so here goes: It's true there are three more readings in the Lords, but my understanding (and recollection from when I worked more on HoP issues) is that the majority of these are pretty perfunctory, especially with a bill like this which has a high government priority to get through before the end of the current Parliament. Essentially, once these amendments hitch a ride on the process, it will get steadily more difficult to unmoor them. They will cease to become amendments, and more a small part of a very important bill. Rejecting amendments like this at any step is an unusual act, especially when they are promoted by peers with apparent strong domain knowledge. It's absolutely impossible if you don't actually have time to debate the details. So what you have to do is to alert politicians to a procedural violation instead. Few politicians are experts on Internet surveillance, so wil not feel confident to go up against domain experts; all of them are experts, however, on the exact moments they might be being bypassed or steamrollered over. That's because they're politicians and human beings, and being sensitive to possible cheating among your peers (pun not intended) is built into their psychology. That moment of steamrollering is on Monday. If the amendments go through on the nod on Monday without a fuss, then the moment will be lost where we can argue about a violation of procedure. After that, we will have to argue about the substance of the bill. And there is no parliamentary time allotted for arguments of substance, because the whole point of inserting these 18 pages of amendments so quickly is to bypass that debate. TLDR; yes, there are other opportunities. No, we're really not confident at all that we could stop the bill at those points. The best and possibly only probable chance to stop the Snooper's Charter is on Monday. (For those wondering how you even begin to make these calculations: EFF works with the Open Rights Group, Britain's own awesome digital rights group. ORG's advisory bench includes MPs and peers, so they walk us both through the probabilities. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/people/advisory https://www.openrightsgroup.org/people/advisory ) Hope this helps.
davidgay 12y ago
The use of "Britons" sounds tone deaf to me, and hence a rather bad choice given that they presumably actually want to stop this (British, but more confused than anything). http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/briton http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/engl...
- nitrogen 12y ago
  The definition you linked doesn't seem to support your claim. I have no connection to the EFF, but I'm curious what a better word would be for a short call to action.
  - jckt 12y ago
    http://grammarist.com/usage/briton/ http://grammarist.com/usage/briton/ This link supports the opposite of davidgay's comment (sources within).
    - alextgordon 12y ago
      I can't say I've ever heard someone say "Briton" without the adjective "ancient".
      - benjiweber 12y ago
        It is a very common way of identifying someone as British. e.g. headlines such as "8 hostages, including 2 Britons", "X million Britons now live in <popular location>" are common.
- dannyobrien 12y ago
  I wrote the headline; I'm British. It's always a little awkward to pick a term here, as we don't usually like to refer to ourselves at all much. "Brits" was too informal for this. UK citizens would have sounded a bit too Airstrip One. Britons has a nice newspaperly ring, but I agree with you that it is potentially a little corny, so I believe we only use it for this particular page. I also have to deal with the trickiness that the text has to simultaneously address UK people wanting to take action, and explain the action to curious people outside of the UK. For instance, the main action uses different language: https://act.eff.org/action/tell-britain-s-lords-don-t-let-the-snooper-s-charter-sneak-past-you https://act.eff.org/action/tell-britain-s-lords-don-t-let-th...
jsnathan 12y ago
Strong guarantees of privacy are essential to enable political dissent. Without it, opinions opposed to the prevailing majority view point are not only side-lined, but the very expression of an interest in them becomes a cause for controversy and social rebuke. Without privacy individuals are unable to explore, consider and evaluate diverging ideals, and eventually reach new personal convictions which may in time turn the tide against the status quo. Instead, the fermentation of ideas is cut short, as most people are unable to stand the push-back inflicted on them by society at an early stage in their thought-process, leading to self-censorship and group-think. Society incurs much more damage from so many angles, ranging from murders to car accidents to diseases, that it does not need to jump in such abject terror at the thought of political violence - still a comparatively rare occurence in most places on this earth - so as to trample on the very foundation of every democracy: Which is the freedom of the individual in his own thoughts, to form his own personal opinions unimpeded by institutionalised social pressure. The mass-scale erosion of privacy must be stopped before it is too late to reverse the trend.
- olefoo 12y ago
  I would like to be optimistic, but I fear we are caught in the pull of a stable orbit in the political system. Plutocracy and Surveillance go hand in hand, and the more government falls to those who can afford it; the more surveillance there will be as the oligarchs attempt to defend their theft.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    If the people cared about this it could be stopped, but they don't care. Hell they think it is a swell idea to jail people for offensive tweets.
    - lmorris84 12y ago
      Agreed. I think many people would naturally recoil from "big brother government oversight" but see no issue using similar means to have people found and locked up for calling someone an unpleasant name on twitter.
Animats 12y ago
How did Lord Prescott, who used to be deputy prime minister and was a union activist, get behind this?
- desas 12y ago
  Lord Prescott did nothing as deputy PM to prevent New Labour from introducing authoritan legislation.
- justincormack 12y ago
  The Labour party has a highly authoritarian wing. Possibly even a majority, it is certainly mainstream there. That is one of the reasons behind growing support for other parties, previously the Lib Dems, now the Greens, among former Labour voters.
Htsthbjig 12y ago
So why the eff does not employ a person that talks to a camera and makes a video over this? Most people don't read(0). So your message is not heard. (0)No judging about it, just stating a fact.
- Cakez0r 12y ago
  Outrageous claim(0) (0)This is a fact
  - EliRivers 12y ago
    Outrageous claim(0) Outrageous it may be, but is it true?
    - hahainternet 12y ago
      No.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  No idea about most people, but I don't watch videos and always look for transcript. Had seen others doing the same, but, once again, no idea how common this is. If you have seen any research - would appreciate if you'd link to one. Videos are slow. I can review a page of text in less than a minute. Watching the video for a same amount of information would take me much more than this, and rewinding back if some reference's unclear is a PITA.
sschueller 12y ago
Does this in any way clash with EU law?
- pjc50 12y ago
  The ECJ ruled the Data Retention Directive unlawful recently. However even if this is an article 8 violation that may take a while to have an effect (see the prisoner votes fiasco)
  - M2Ys4U 12y ago
    The prisoner votes situation is completely different - that's nothing to do with EU law.
- timthorn 12y ago
  Probably arguable, but according to Article 4 (2) of the Lisbon Treaty: [The EU] shall respect [Member States] essential State functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the State, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security. In particular, national security remains the sole responsibility of each Member State. The UK could insist that this is a national security measure.
andrewaylett 12y ago
And all of the MySociety sites appear to be down! For "maintenance". Coincidence? Conspiracy? How do I talk to my (elected or otherwise) representatives now? (Yes, it was planned: https://twitter.com/mysociety/status/558591332374310913 https://twitter.com/mysociety/status/558591332374310913)
- MarcScott 12y ago
  You can tweet them. https://act.eff.org/action/tell-britain-s-lords-don-t-let-the-snooper-s-charter-sneak-past-you https://act.eff.org/action/tell-britain-s-lords-don-t-let-th...
sambenson 12y ago
According to Lord Bassam, Monday is the committee stage and they won't be voting... https://twitter.com/SteveTheQuip/status/558951743913226240 https://twitter.com/SteveTheQuip/status/558951743913226240
- AlyssaRowan 12y ago
  It does mean they can take the amendments back out. Parliament previously rejected this after debate, so it's simply improper for it to be added to something else in the Lords. This "riders" trick is highly frowned upon here as an abuse of protocol. If it's ever to be raised again like the highly controversial zombie legislation it is, it needs to be raised in the next session of the Commons, after the next General Election (e.g. Cameron probably would, along with his "let's ban encryption" muppetry). And the Lib Dems will probably oppose it again, as would the Greens and Pirate Party, should they hold any sway. Even the Information Commissioner has strongly warned against the consequences of knee-jerk reactions in surveillance/privacy-impacting legislation like this.
interesting_guy 12y ago
is it tea time?
PythonicAlpha 12y ago
It seems, in some countries, people are just waiting for the next terrorist act to bring out new ways to undermine the principles of democracy. Without privacy and the possibility to express one self without fear, democracy is not possible. We create monstrous systems that become bigger and bigger and destroy democracy from within.
KaiserPro 12y ago
Don't use twitter, its easily dismissed. Use https://www.writetothem.com/ https://www.writetothem.com/ its far more effective to express reasoned though in a message >140 chars.
dazbradbury 12y ago
Not my post, but a comment that potentially explains what's happening here and provides an interesting viewpoint: "I am a former parliamentary assistant with experience working on complex and controversial legislation. I do not think this is a bona fide attempt to pass the amendments. 1. Generally, the government lays amendments it actually wants to pass in the name of the minister leading on the bill. In this instance that's Lord Bates. He's put lots of other amendments on the list[1] but not this one. 2. In bill committees, MPs and peers often table amendments that they are not trying to pass. They do this to secure debating time, argue about the principles, and occasionally extract commitments from the government. They get the chance to make speeches and then withdraw the amendments without them ever going to a vote. I suspect the four peers who tabled this are trying to kick start a cross-bench movement in favour of stronger security laws. They'll use their chance to make speeches and then withdraw their amendment. (EDIT: They have since made clear that this is an earnest attempt to legalise the powers but as noted above, they are raising this without any co-operation with the government. Source[2].) 3. Even if this is a genuine attempt to insert this language, it is a highly irregular way to go about it and I would bet against it surviving a vote. Peers are very aware of the role they play in making legislation and they know they aren't supposed to ram in controversial language like this. It's for the elected members in the Commons, who have the democratic mandate, to make the crucial decisions and for the Lords to focus on technical elements. This would not go down well. In the Lords, the whole House votes at Committee stage. This means hundreds of peers, who are independently minded and relatively difficult to whip, would get to express their view. I would not expect them to let this by. 4. Even if it survived the committee, the Bill needs to go back to the Commons, in a process known as "ping pong". The new clauses would almost certainly be defeated by MPs because the Lib Dems would be whipped against it[3], depriving the government of its majority, and Labour has already said it won't support it either[4]. The numbers just aren't there. I am not close to this issue and could not tell you what they are trying to do. This is all guess work. But it really does not look like a genuine attempt by the government, and I wouldn't say it stands much of a chance." Sources: Post: http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2te41m/lords_sneak_uk_internet_snooping_law_into_bill/cnyixgp http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2te41m/lords_... [1] - http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2014-2015/0075/amend/ml075-II.htm http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2014-20... [2] - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/22/snoopers-charter-changed-version-pass-before-election http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/22/snoopers-char... [3] - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30870442 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30870442 [4] - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/11/ed-miliband-snoopers-charter-paris-attacks http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/11/ed-miliband-sno...
dazbradbury 12y ago
Comment taken from Reddit, but potentially explains what's happening here and provides an interesting viewpoint: I am a former parliamentary assistant with experience working on complex and controversial legislation. I do not think this is a bona fide attempt to pass the amendments. Generally, the government lays amendments it actually wants to pass in the name of the minister leading on the bill. In this instance that's Lord Bates. He's put lots of other amendments on the list but not this one. In bill committees, MPs and peers often table amendments that they are not trying to pass. They do this to secure debating time, argue about the principles, and occasionally extract commitments from the government. They get the chance to make speeches and then withdraw the amendments without them ever going to a vote. I suspect the four peers who tabled this are trying to kick start a cross-bench movement in favour of stronger security laws. They'll use their chance to make speeches and then withdraw their amendment. (EDIT: They have since made clear that this is an earnest attempt to legalise the powers but as noted above, they are raising this without any co-operation with the government. Source.) Even if this is a genuine attempt to insert this language, it is a highly irregular way to go about it and I would bet against it surviving a vote. Peers are very aware of the role they play in making legislation and they know they aren't supposed to ram in controversial language like this. It's for the elected members in the Commons, who have the democratic mandate, to make the crucial decisions and for the Lords to focus on technical elements. This would not go down well. In the Lords, the whole House votes at Committee stage. This means hundreds of peers, who are independently minded and relatively difficult to whip, would get to express their view. I would not expect them to let this by. Even if it survived the committee, the Bill needs to go back to the Commons, in a process known as "ping pong". The new clauses would almost certainly be defeated by MPs because the Lib Dems would be whipped against it, depriving the government of its majority, and Labour has already said it won't support it either. The numbers just aren't there. I am not close to this issue and could not tell you what they are trying to do. This is all guess work. But it really does not look like a genuine attempt by the government, and I wouldn't say it stands much of a chance. source: http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2te41m/lords_sneak_uk_internet_snooping_law_into_bill/cnyixgp http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2te41m/lords_...
jheriko 12y ago
There is sadly a much bigger problem when people can not stop widely unpopular legislation from coming to fruition. Representative democracy is not always democracy... even with an election looming.

700 points by sinak 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Well I am drunk, so my ex Deputy PM gets the alcohol version of constituency letters Attn: Lord Prescott House of Lords Saturday 24 January 2015 Paul R Brian 18 Regent Way Kings Hill Kent ME19 4EB Paul@mikadosoftware.com 07540456115 Dear Lord Prescott, On Monday you have the opportunity to oppose a bill forcing ISPs to hold excessive amounts of private information in the hope some will be useful in the fight against crime and political crime. This information may indeed be useful, but allowing only police and intelligence services to access it steps down the wrong path. Please consider opposing this bill until sufficient steps can be put in place to allow full and unfettered access to everyone's data - by everyone. A kingdom of the blind policed by the sighted is not free. A kingdom where all have eyes is equal, and can strive towards free. Yours sincerely, Paul R Brian

kordless 12y ago
Assume I live in a rather secure hole underground, by myself. There are very few things I can do, short of connecting to the outside world and interacting with something in an illegal manner, that can constitute a crime. Maybe I build something that can harm someone remotely, but that requires intent to do something to interact with the outside world, so I'm discounting that here. I'm talking about doing something in my own hole, by myself, with no intent of leaving or interacting with anyone else. Should the data that constitutes my actions be available to 'everyone'? I argue it does not. It's not your data. It's my data. Now if I decide to leave my hole and go out into the world and interact with others, things get more complicated. If there is an opportunity where my information becomes entangled with others, I'm all for sharing it with everyone, with one caveat. I'd like to know who accessed my data, and if they accessed it simultaneously with other people's data, I'd like to know their data as well. I'm down with charging for it as well. Keeps the costs of doing surveillance on everyone high. BTW, I'm well aware of the dilemma you are attempting to put your Lord into here. I just don't think it's that easy to dispel.
- estel 12y ago
  I like the idea of Prezza being lifeisstillgood's own Lord
  - lifeisstillgood 12y ago
    My own, personal, Jesus. With Jags :-)
- lifeisstillgood 12y ago
  I'm up for charging for personal data, for making entangled data available and many other options - what I don't see is a binary choice between "we need access to everyone's data to catch the bad guys" and "liberty means anonymity" Neither seem correct in our new world, and one of the many problems with this salvo in the "2nd crypto war" is it assumes the fight is on those grounds. I think that means I am agreeing with you. Do you get cable in your hole? It sounds like a nice place to retreat to :-)
  - kordless 12y ago
    If you consider personal data as unknown to everyone and public data known, it sorta ends up looking like randomness and order, with the opportunity for chaos to exist in between.

isaacwaller 12y ago

What a ridiculous clickbait headline from the EFF. The truth is buried 7 paragraphs down: The amendments announced on Thursday will be formally included into the bill on Monday, in a committee meeting that was not planned to include a vote. The Lords will then have two more minor opportunities to debate the content of the bill before it is passed onto the elected House of Commons in its entirety for what is expected to be a simple up/down vote. Britain's members of parliament are currently distracted as they prepare for nationwide elections in May, which means it is highly likely that a major anti-terrorism bill like this will collect enough votes to pass.

hanoz 12y ago
Your cited "buried truth" is more alarming than the headline.
- estel 12y ago
  Why's that more alarming? "72 hours to stop the bill" is pretty alarming, but with the bill still in committee, there's still a a little longer for it to go yet. The third reading is scheduled in a fortnight.
  - dannyobrien 12y ago
    Hi, Danny O'Brien from EFF, and the person who wrote the headline and the paragraph. I'd say the headline is actually in this case more accurate, but I didn't really want to add another six paragraphs of insider politics to the blog post to explain why. Long-form HN comment readers are a different matter, of course, so here goes: It's true there are three more readings in the Lords, but my understanding (and recollection from when I worked more on HoP issues) is that the majority of these are pretty perfunctory, especially with a bill like this which has a high government priority to get through before the end of the current Parliament. Essentially, once these amendments hitch a ride on the process, it will get steadily more difficult to unmoor them. They will cease to become amendments, and more a small part of a very important bill. Rejecting amendments like this at any step is an unusual act, especially when they are promoted by peers with apparent strong domain knowledge. It's absolutely impossible if you don't actually have time to debate the details. So what you have to do is to alert politicians to a procedural violation instead. Few politicians are experts on Internet surveillance, so wil not feel confident to go up against domain experts; all of them are experts, however, on the exact moments they might be being bypassed or steamrollered over. That's because they're politicians and human beings, and being sensitive to possible cheating among your peers (pun not intended) is built into their psychology. That moment of steamrollering is on Monday. If the amendments go through on the nod on Monday without a fuss, then the moment will be lost where we can argue about a violation of procedure. After that, we will have to argue about the substance of the bill. And there is no parliamentary time allotted for arguments of substance, because the whole point of inserting these 18 pages of amendments so quickly is to bypass that debate. TLDR; yes, there are other opportunities. No, we're really not confident at all that we could stop the bill at those points. The best and possibly only probable chance to stop the Snooper's Charter is on Monday. (For those wondering how you even begin to make these calculations: EFF works with the Open Rights Group, Britain's own awesome digital rights group. ORG's advisory bench includes MPs and peers, so they walk us both through the probabilities. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/people/advisory https://www.openrightsgroup.org/people/advisory ) Hope this helps.

davidgay 12y ago

The use of "Britons" sounds tone deaf to me, and hence a rather bad choice given that they presumably actually want to stop this (British, but more confused than anything). http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/briton http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/engl...

nitrogen 12y ago
The definition you linked doesn't seem to support your claim. I have no connection to the EFF, but I'm curious what a better word would be for a short call to action.
- jckt 12y ago
  http://grammarist.com/usage/briton/ http://grammarist.com/usage/briton/ This link supports the opposite of davidgay's comment (sources within).
  - alextgordon 12y ago
    I can't say I've ever heard someone say "Briton" without the adjective "ancient".
    - benjiweber 12y ago
      It is a very common way of identifying someone as British. e.g. headlines such as "8 hostages, including 2 Britons", "X million Britons now live in <popular location>" are common.
dannyobrien 12y ago
I wrote the headline; I'm British. It's always a little awkward to pick a term here, as we don't usually like to refer to ourselves at all much. "Brits" was too informal for this. UK citizens would have sounded a bit too Airstrip One. Britons has a nice newspaperly ring, but I agree with you that it is potentially a little corny, so I believe we only use it for this particular page. I also have to deal with the trickiness that the text has to simultaneously address UK people wanting to take action, and explain the action to curious people outside of the UK. For instance, the main action uses different language: https://act.eff.org/action/tell-britain-s-lords-don-t-let-the-snooper-s-charter-sneak-past-you https://act.eff.org/action/tell-britain-s-lords-don-t-let-th...

jsnathan 12y ago

Strong guarantees of privacy are essential to enable political dissent. Without it, opinions opposed to the prevailing majority view point are not only side-lined, but the very expression of an interest in them becomes a cause for controversy and social rebuke. Without privacy individuals are unable to explore, consider and evaluate diverging ideals, and eventually reach new personal convictions which may in time turn the tide against the status quo. Instead, the fermentation of ideas is cut short, as most people are unable to stand the push-back inflicted on them by society at an early stage in their thought-process, leading to self-censorship and group-think. Society incurs much more damage from so many angles, ranging from murders to car accidents to diseases, that it does not need to jump in such abject terror at the thought of political violence - still a comparatively rare occurence in most places on this earth - so as to trample on the very foundation of every democracy: Which is the freedom of the individual in his own thoughts, to form his own personal opinions unimpeded by institutionalised social pressure. The mass-scale erosion of privacy must be stopped before it is too late to reverse the trend.

olefoo 12y ago
I would like to be optimistic, but I fear we are caught in the pull of a stable orbit in the political system. Plutocracy and Surveillance go hand in hand, and the more government falls to those who can afford it; the more surveillance there will be as the oligarchs attempt to defend their theft.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  If the people cared about this it could be stopped, but they don't care. Hell they think it is a swell idea to jail people for offensive tweets.
  - lmorris84 12y ago
    Agreed. I think many people would naturally recoil from "big brother government oversight" but see no issue using similar means to have people found and locked up for calling someone an unpleasant name on twitter.

Animats 12y ago

How did Lord Prescott, who used to be deputy prime minister and was a union activist, get behind this?

desas 12y ago
Lord Prescott did nothing as deputy PM to prevent New Labour from introducing authoritan legislation.
justincormack 12y ago
The Labour party has a highly authoritarian wing. Possibly even a majority, it is certainly mainstream there. That is one of the reasons behind growing support for other parties, previously the Lib Dems, now the Greens, among former Labour voters.

Htsthbjig 12y ago

So why the eff does not employ a person that talks to a camera and makes a video over this? Most people don't read(0). So your message is not heard. (0)No judging about it, just stating a fact.

Cakez0r 12y ago
Outrageous claim(0) (0)This is a fact
- EliRivers 12y ago
  Outrageous claim(0) Outrageous it may be, but is it true?
  - hahainternet 12y ago
    No.
drdaeman 12y ago
No idea about most people, but I don't watch videos and always look for transcript. Had seen others doing the same, but, once again, no idea how common this is. If you have seen any research - would appreciate if you'd link to one. Videos are slow. I can review a page of text in less than a minute. Watching the video for a same amount of information would take me much more than this, and rewinding back if some reference's unclear is a PITA.

sschueller 12y ago

Does this in any way clash with EU law?

pjc50 12y ago
The ECJ ruled the Data Retention Directive unlawful recently. However even if this is an article 8 violation that may take a while to have an effect (see the prisoner votes fiasco)
- M2Ys4U 12y ago
  The prisoner votes situation is completely different - that's nothing to do with EU law.
timthorn 12y ago
Probably arguable, but according to Article 4 (2) of the Lisbon Treaty: [The EU] shall respect [Member States] essential State functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the State, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security. In particular, national security remains the sole responsibility of each Member State. The UK could insist that this is a national security measure.

andrewaylett 12y ago

And all of the MySociety sites appear to be down! For "maintenance". Coincidence? Conspiracy? How do I talk to my (elected or otherwise) representatives now? (Yes, it was planned: https://twitter.com/mysociety/status/558591332374310913 https://twitter.com/mysociety/status/558591332374310913)

MarcScott 12y ago
You can tweet them. https://act.eff.org/action/tell-britain-s-lords-don-t-let-the-snooper-s-charter-sneak-past-you https://act.eff.org/action/tell-britain-s-lords-don-t-let-th...

sambenson 12y ago

According to Lord Bassam, Monday is the committee stage and they won't be voting... https://twitter.com/SteveTheQuip/status/558951743913226240 https://twitter.com/SteveTheQuip/status/558951743913226240

AlyssaRowan 12y ago
It does mean they can take the amendments back out. Parliament previously rejected this after debate, so it's simply improper for it to be added to something else in the Lords. This "riders" trick is highly frowned upon here as an abuse of protocol. If it's ever to be raised again like the highly controversial zombie legislation it is, it needs to be raised in the next session of the Commons, after the next General Election (e.g. Cameron probably would, along with his "let's ban encryption" muppetry). And the Lib Dems will probably oppose it again, as would the Greens and Pirate Party, should they hold any sway. Even the Information Commissioner has strongly warned against the consequences of knee-jerk reactions in surveillance/privacy-impacting legislation like this.

interesting_guy 12y ago

is it tea time?

PythonicAlpha 12y ago

It seems, in some countries, people are just waiting for the next terrorist act to bring out new ways to undermine the principles of democracy. Without privacy and the possibility to express one self without fear, democracy is not possible. We create monstrous systems that become bigger and bigger and destroy democracy from within.

KaiserPro 12y ago

Don't use twitter, its easily dismissed. Use https://www.writetothem.com/ https://www.writetothem.com/ its far more effective to express reasoned though in a message >140 chars.

dazbradbury 12y ago

Not my post, but a comment that potentially explains what's happening here and provides an interesting viewpoint: "I am a former parliamentary assistant with experience working on complex and controversial legislation. I do not think this is a bona fide attempt to pass the amendments. 1. Generally, the government lays amendments it actually wants to pass in the name of the minister leading on the bill. In this instance that's Lord Bates. He's put lots of other amendments on the list[1] but not this one. 2. In bill committees, MPs and peers often table amendments that they are not trying to pass. They do this to secure debating time, argue about the principles, and occasionally extract commitments from the government. They get the chance to make speeches and then withdraw the amendments without them ever going to a vote. I suspect the four peers who tabled this are trying to kick start a cross-bench movement in favour of stronger security laws. They'll use their chance to make speeches and then withdraw their amendment. (EDIT: They have since made clear that this is an earnest attempt to legalise the powers but as noted above, they are raising this without any co-operation with the government. Source[2].) 3. Even if this is a genuine attempt to insert this language, it is a highly irregular way to go about it and I would bet against it surviving a vote. Peers are very aware of the role they play in making legislation and they know they aren't supposed to ram in controversial language like this. It's for the elected members in the Commons, who have the democratic mandate, to make the crucial decisions and for the Lords to focus on technical elements. This would not go down well. In the Lords, the whole House votes at Committee stage. This means hundreds of peers, who are independently minded and relatively difficult to whip, would get to express their view. I would not expect them to let this by. 4. Even if it survived the committee, the Bill needs to go back to the Commons, in a process known as "ping pong". The new clauses would almost certainly be defeated by MPs because the Lib Dems would be whipped against it[3], depriving the government of its majority, and Labour has already said it won't support it either[4]. The numbers just aren't there. I am not close to this issue and could not tell you what they are trying to do. This is all guess work. But it really does not look like a genuine attempt by the government, and I wouldn't say it stands much of a chance." Sources: Post: http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2te41m/lords_sneak_uk_internet_snooping_law_into_bill/cnyixgp http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2te41m/lords_... [1] - http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2014-2015/0075/amend/ml075-II.htm http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2014-20... [2] - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/22/snoopers-charter-changed-version-pass-before-election http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/22/snoopers-char... [3] - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30870442 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30870442 [4] - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/11/ed-miliband-snoopers-charter-paris-attacks http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/11/ed-miliband-sno...

dazbradbury 12y ago

Comment taken from Reddit, but potentially explains what's happening here and provides an interesting viewpoint: I am a former parliamentary assistant with experience working on complex and controversial legislation. I do not think this is a bona fide attempt to pass the amendments. Generally, the government lays amendments it actually wants to pass in the name of the minister leading on the bill. In this instance that's Lord Bates. He's put lots of other amendments on the list but not this one. In bill committees, MPs and peers often table amendments that they are not trying to pass. They do this to secure debating time, argue about the principles, and occasionally extract commitments from the government. They get the chance to make speeches and then withdraw the amendments without them ever going to a vote. I suspect the four peers who tabled this are trying to kick start a cross-bench movement in favour of stronger security laws. They'll use their chance to make speeches and then withdraw their amendment. (EDIT: They have since made clear that this is an earnest attempt to legalise the powers but as noted above, they are raising this without any co-operation with the government. Source.) Even if this is a genuine attempt to insert this language, it is a highly irregular way to go about it and I would bet against it surviving a vote. Peers are very aware of the role they play in making legislation and they know they aren't supposed to ram in controversial language like this. It's for the elected members in the Commons, who have the democratic mandate, to make the crucial decisions and for the Lords to focus on technical elements. This would not go down well. In the Lords, the whole House votes at Committee stage. This means hundreds of peers, who are independently minded and relatively difficult to whip, would get to express their view. I would not expect them to let this by. Even if it survived the committee, the Bill needs to go back to the Commons, in a process known as "ping pong". The new clauses would almost certainly be defeated by MPs because the Lib Dems would be whipped against it, depriving the government of its majority, and Labour has already said it won't support it either. The numbers just aren't there. I am not close to this issue and could not tell you what they are trying to do. This is all guess work. But it really does not look like a genuine attempt by the government, and I wouldn't say it stands much of a chance. source: http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2te41m/lords_sneak_uk_internet_snooping_law_into_bill/cnyixgp http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2te41m/lords_...

jheriko 12y ago

There is sadly a much bigger problem when people can not stop widely unpopular legislation from coming to fruition. Representative democracy is not always democracy... even with an election looming.