Home Office accused of blocking UK public's scrutiny of Snoopers' Charter The UK's Home Office has been accused of making "it near to impossible to provide a meaningful response" to the public consultations which campaigners fought legal battles to have included in the Investigatory Powers Act. In an open letter to Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, lawyers and civil society campaigners complained that …
The watchmen watchers of course who are watched by the watchmen watchmen watcher watchers who are...
You get the idea.
It's actually supposed to be the electorate in a democracy as they have the power to vote in the people that serve the people and act in ways that are for the people.
What we actually have is 3/2 party system where laws that are not for the people and actually against the people traverse the parties leaving us with no power to stop it or get them reversed at the next election.
In summary politicians are self serving leeches who make the vogons look good.
The gummint is supposed to custard the tarts.
They're elected, so answerable to the electorate. But in the past 40 years or so, we've gruesomely undermined that accountability by looking over their shoulders all the time. When we put so much work into micromanaging the buggers, it becomes that much harder to blame them for fucking up.
Hell, look at Brexit. That's completely our mess. And we got it by "not trusting our politicians".
Not that it's, generally, a good idea to trust politicians too far. But it's also not a good idea to distrust them too much, because then they can't do their jobs, even if (outside chance) they're genuinely, honestly trying to. Just look at the US, anytime in the past 15 years, to see what comes of that.
She's searching it for those elusive Hashtags right now...
(I'm surprised we're even allowed to comment, every other Broadsheet has prevented comments on this topic. The 'new' post Rusbridger Guardian is a shameful imitation of its former self).
El Reg is a lone wolf, in this regard. Great informative article regarding the mess.
She was no better at the department of Energy and Climate Change. Needs to resign, she has no credibility left.
We need someone that has the intelligence and ability to play a harpsichord, not punch through it with their fists, at the first opportunity.
"Pfft - you've got to wonder whether or not Amber Fudd actually *knows* what's in that document, much less understands it."
The Home Office could give the Borg Collective a good run for its money. Every Home Secretary eventually "goes native", rolls over and becomes merely the latest mouthpiece for the same old policies and objectives. Which, I hasten to add, tend to regard such trivia as democracy, privacy and freedom more as inconveniences to be circumvented than values to be protected.
The real test of a politician in the job is not whether they are absorbed, but for how long they actually manage to retain any semblance of individuality and integrity.
Well spotted.
Do you expect anything different from a government that is openly considering Henry VIIIs powers to bypass parliament and enact legislation and is planning to set those powers in stone in a "Great Repeal Bill"?
Just in case they need it again to deploy the troops once the discontent at 10% inflation in a few years hits the streets.
Too much of the nation's infrastructure is vulnerable and in practice undefendable. You don't worry about the odd riot on a sink estate though God knows that puts the willys up the powers that aren't. You worry when the National Grid goes sideways at 2 am mid February and GPS and GSM are subject to hundreds of 10W jammers. Hell hath no fury like a middle class spurned - cause they knows how stuff works - or not.
You can demand that encryption is weak and record every damn phone call you like, but people who are smart enough to know they are likely surveilled are smart enough to route round it. How long did it take to find Osama? He may have been smarter than the average bear bullet, but how would he compare next to some of the nations' (sic) best gamekeepers turned poachers?
People who sneer at Snowden and label him a traitor are missing the point. The real traitors are those walling themselves in against being called on their own self-interest and public failures - and removing everyone's right to freedom and privacy in the process.
The stupid (you know who you are lady) taking bad advice from the power seekers and turning it into populist sound bites would do well better to STFU; instead listen to the much scourned real experts whilst they are still, actually, on the same side. God help all of us when there comes a time when they are not - it cannot end well so best not start it.
Hell hath no fury like a middle class spurned
They do not care. As far as they are concerned the technical middle class is bound by a sufficient number of shackles to be not worthy of their attention - mortgage, kids in university, etc.
They do have a point - In my student days I did not give a damn and I stood my ground for 40 days against the government security forces (in another country).
I will not do it now. The key word is NOW. It will take making the middle class a class of dispossessed for them to start doing what you describe. This is at least 3-5 years down the road and any one of us who can, will be gone somewhere else by hook or by crook rather than risk our families in this. That is the reality here - we would rather take our shackles elsewhere than break them and do something. The Tory government will fulfill their migration targets - do not worry about it. Not because of immigration decrease. Because of emigration increase.
By the way, what you are describing will happen not because of active action, but because there will be nobody left around to fix the infrastructure and run it. A grid designed by politicians will tank at 2am on a February night without an engineer sabotaging it.
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"The number of people willing to commit the crime is much higher than you would expect,[...]"
It worries me when people in law enforcement are happy to break laws for their benefit in their private lives. It does suggest an institutional malaise that presumably encourages such thinking.
While we are throwing sayings about - "Power corrupts - absolute power corrupts absolutely".
How Theresa May is wearing her religion on her sleeve is a sign of someone who will believe that "the end justifies the means".
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"While we are throwing sayings about - "Power corrupts - absolute power corrupts absolutely"."
Lord Acton: "All power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."
The old boy was an example of the way the British used to be - despite being a Roman Catholic (at a time when the Pope had just ruled that democracy, science and progress were evil) he was a social progressive who was appalled by over-reaching politicians. We need people like him today.
> "The modern day Michael Foot only without the conviction, charm and charisma."
That's exactly the point, he isn't charismatic or flamboyant. But if you actually listen to what he has to say, its obvious he isn't a lying toerag and actually gives a shit about the people of Britain.
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If the text was all version controlled, you'd be able to check the diffs at each revision, and easily spot the bits that had changed, and those that had been left alone, and so focus your attention efficiently.
Could we perhaps upload the drafts) of the Snoopers' Charter to Github?
You've just hit on a very important point.
Lets say someone decides to form a political party like UKIP (if you can call it that) did but on the basis of protecting peoples freedoms and privacy then the government now has the power to discredit any person who is trying to do it while making sure no one can use it against government.
I hadn't thought of it that way.
Sneaky bastards.
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