PM's Snoopers' Charter

[Stanley]

Hopefully now kicked into touch: https://www.thecanary.co/2017/07/03/...le-to-survive/

And a decent summary of its ramifications by a couple of clued up Canadians no less:

[Itsonlyagame]

Dont have a problem with it to be honest.
Are we really all that important that the government and secret services continually want to spy on us as individuals. Even if they did, if there's nothing to hide what's the issue. If it's purely down to feeling your privacy rights are being infringed tough.
For me it's a bit like stop and search or passenger profiling at airports.
If you've got nothing to hide then just accept the fact that the ones that do have more chance of being caught.
Small price to pay surely ?

Tin hat at the ready .....

[Hubble]

Dont have a problem with it to be honest.
Are we really all that important that the government and secret services continually want to spy on us as individuals. Even if they did, if there's nothing to hide what's the issue. If it's purely down to feeling your privacy rights are being infringed tough.
For me it's a bit like stop and search or passenger profiling at airports.
If you've got nothing to hide then just accept the fact that the ones that do have more chance of being caught.
Small price to pay surely ?

Tin hat at the ready .....

Completely disagree mate. You want to allow these people the right to read anything you write in an email, or online, to track all your online activity? No ####ing way. Do we have the same right to track them? Who the #### are they? Do you know who they are? Do you know who might be reading your emails? Let me hazard a guess that you don't. At every turn government wants more and more control over you - what you think, what you do, who you know - everything. This is blatant totalitarianism in my book and needs to be nipped in the bud pronto. Or do you want to sleepwalk into a police state?

People often bring up the 'íf you've got nothing to hide' argument in these debates. It is not a valid argument. Privacy IS a basic human right, end of. If you give that away, it's the thin end of the edge.

Small price to pay? No, way too large a price to pay, for something that would make very little difference to what they SAY it's for, but a great deal of difference in regard to what it's really for: controlling you.

[Jeems]

Dont have a problem with it to be honest.
Are we really all that important that the government and secret services continually want to spy on us as individuals. Even if they did, if there's nothing to hide what's the issue. If it's purely down to feeling your privacy rights are being infringed tough.
For me it's a bit like stop and search or passenger profiling at airports.
If you've got nothing to hide then just accept the fact that the ones that do have more chance of being caught.
Small price to pay surely ?

Tin hat at the ready .....

How would you feel if the spying was made obvious, ie they installed CCTV in every one of your rooms at home? No one would ever watch it unless you did something wrong...

[Bigdave]

Completely disagree mate. You want to allow these people the right to read anything you write in an email, or online, to track all your online activity? No ####ing way. Do we have the same right to track them? Who the #### are they? Do you know who they are? Do you know who might be reading your emails? Let me hazard a guess that you don't. At every turn government wants more and more control over you - what you think, what you do, who you know - everything. This is blatant totalitarianism in my book and needs to be nipped in the bud pronto. Or do you want to sleepwalk into a police state?

People often bring up the 'íf you've got nothing to hide' argument in these debates. It is not a valid argument. Privacy IS a basic human right, end of. If you give that away, it's the thin end of the edge.

Small price to pay? No, way too large a price to pay, for something that would make very little difference to what they SAY it's for, but a great deal of difference in regard to what it's really for: controlling you.

Genuine question hubs but do you not think that if they had this power they would be able to stop potential terrorist attacks?

[brightonr]

Completely disagree mate. You want to allow these people the right to read anything you write in an email, or online, to track all your online activity? No ####ing way. Do we have the same right to track them? Who the #### are they? Do you know who they are? Do you know who might be reading your emails? Let me hazard a guess that you don't. At every turn government wants more and more control over you - what you think, what you do, who you know - everything. This is blatant totalitarianism in my book and needs to be nipped in the bud pronto. Or do you want to sleepwalk into a police state?

People often bring up the 'íf you've got nothing to hide' argument in these debates. It is not a valid argument. Privacy IS a basic human right, end of. If you give that away, it's the thin end of the edge.

Small price to pay? No, way too large a price to pay, for something that would make very little difference to what they SAY it's for, but a great deal of difference in regard to what it's really for: controlling you.

I do see what you are saying mate. But in terms of context, let's assume that only 30 million of us are being snooped on, leaving out children and the elderly/infirm. And that there are 1000 people snooping on us full time. That equates to 30,000 people each, so hardly as if they are going to be reading all your e-mails. I'll be honest and happily admit to not having looked at this at all, but to worry about who may be concerning themselves with what I do at any point is well on the way to paranoia.

IMO obviously.

[Hubble]

I do see what you are saying mate. But in terms of context, let's assume that only 30 million of us are being snooped on, leaving out children and the elderly/infirm. And that there are 1000 people snooping on us full time. That equates to 30,000 people each, so hardly as if they are going to be reading all your e-mails. I'll be honest and happily admit to not having looked at this at all, but to worry about who may be concerning themselves with what I do at any point is well on the way to paranoia.

IMO obviously.

It's the principle Brights. Thin end of the wedge mate.

[Hubble]

Genuine question hubs but do you not think that if they had this power they would be able to stop potential terrorist attacks?

No Dave, I don't think it will make the slightest bit of difference and I think it's a lie that this is what it's for. IMHO the sole purpose of this is to snoop on us and attempt to control us/predict our behavior and use that data for whatever purpose they chose. Personally, I think it's extremely sinister.

Terrorists are already well aware of all of this and their online activity is sophisticated - they don't tweet stuff in the public domain - for example, or send normal emails to each other - unless they deliberately want it to be seen. They will use encryption, VPN, the so-called 'dark web' and all manner of other means to avoid being detected. That's why I just don't buy it, because it's still not that hard for people to evade scrutiny if they choose.

Furthermore, I really don't trust our security services any more either. When you see the shenanigans they get up - including allowing known Jihadists and terrorists to live amongst us, like they did in Manchester for example, tells me all I need to know about them. The mass hoovering up of our personal data isn't going to change that side of things one jot. Just make us even more surveilled and more controlled and I don't know about you Dave, but I thought 1984 was a pretty scary scenario!

[Stanley]

I do see what you are saying mate. But in terms of context, let's assume that only 30 million of us are being snooped on, leaving out children and the elderly/infirm. And that there are 1000 people snooping on us full time. That equates to 30,000 people each, so hardly as if they are going to be reading all your e-mails. I'll be honest and happily admit to not having looked at this at all, but to worry about who may be concerning themselves with what I do at any point is well on the way to paranoia.

IMO obviously.

Security services can use black ops voice/key logging mate. So key words can get flagged up, meaning that they don't need thousands of drones sitting and watching your every move.

[Stanley]

if there's nothing to hide what's the issue.

This is the line that constantly gets thrown back but it's a flawed argument because it's not about what people may or may not have to hide. It's about every human's inalienable right to privacy.

[Itsonlyagame]

It's the principle Brights. Thin end of the wedge mate.

Hubble, given the world we live in today I am happy to put principle to one side regarding "snooping"
I actually couldn't give a monkeys whether the authorities look at my emails if it means it enables them to have the power to look at the emails and data of the people they are trying to deal with.
I just cannot get my head round this whole idea that people are petrified of the general chit chat that's exchanged by email being so sensitive as to be top secret. To me, people who think like that are a little bit too precious and self important.

[Itsonlyagame]

This is the line that constantly gets thrown back but it's a flawed argument because it's not about what people may or may not have to hide. It's about every human's inalienable right to privacy.

So someone accessing child #### and sharing it with their twisted counterparts has a right to privacy because they are a human.
In order to catch these people and others you need evidence. Looking for evidence used to mean questioning innocent people as well, to rule them out. In this day and age things have change due to the internet. If the authorities suspect someone is up to no good they should have the power to look where they feel is necessary, no stone unturned and all that.
I just don't get why normal everyday people are so afraid of other people seeing the mostly mundane messages they send their friends. I think some people need to stop harping on about big brother, human rights blah blah blah, to me it's borderline paranoia.

[Itsonlyagame]

How would you feel if the spying was made obvious, ie they installed CCTV in every one of your rooms at home? No one would ever watch it unless you did something wrong...

As I've said mate, why the fu€k would the authorities want to spy on me, I'm really not that exiting.

[Itsonlyagame]

As I've said mate, why the fu€k would the authorities want to spy on me, I'm really not that exiting.

I meant exciting !

[Itsonlyagame]

Completely disagree mate. You want to allow these people the right to read anything you write in an email, or online, to track all your online activity? No ####ing way. Do we have the same right to track them? Who the #### are they? Do you know who they are? Do you know who might be reading your emails? Let me hazard a guess that you don't. At every turn government wants more and more control over you - what you think, what you do, who you know - everything. This is blatant totalitarianism in my book and needs to be nipped in the bud pronto. Or do you want to sleepwalk into a police state?

People often bring up the 'íf you've got nothing to hide' argument in these debates. It is not a valid argument. Privacy IS a basic human right, end of. If you give that away, it's the thin end of the edge.

Small price to pay? No, way too large a price to pay, for something that would make very little difference to what they SAY it's for, but a great deal of difference in regard to what it's really for: controlling you.

No I can't track them mate, just as I can't track an plain clothed policeman. I'm not sure what relevance that actually has to be honest ?
Maybe I'm being naive but if someone reads my emails I'm not sure how that enables them to alter my mind.
Can you give me some examples of how they would go about that, I'm genuinely interested.