UK.gov to unveil reborn, renamed net-snoop plans in Queen's Speech The Coalition's plans to hugely step up surveillance of the internet aren't new - indeed they date from well before the Coalition - but readers could be forgiven for thinking it's all brand new this morning after a quick look at the national newspapers today. David Cameron's government first published its intentions to snoop …
I guess it's time to start encrypting and proxifying everything. I don't even have much to hide, it's the principle of it all.
Hopefully this helps wake up the public that little bit more. We're in a supposed democracy, yet the government aren't simply not doing what the people want, they're doing the opposite!
Seems El Reg is late, I heard this report yesterday. The scope of the surveillance is so outrageous that I thought it must have been a 1st April prank. That a modern Western democracy could stoop so low is so unbelievable that I still would not be surprised if it were a joke.
This proposal for full surveillance of the British people is so extreme and contemptible that it puts the Home Office on a par with the Abwehr but one without the nice Vice Admiral Wilhelm Canaris in charge. Frankly, it's shocking and deeply disturbing.
Britain and allies won WWII and they won it on values that were very different to those which underlie this surveillance proposal. Moreover, the UK is already awash with surveillance cameras and this proposal for internet surveillance now puts it fully on par with the monitoring Das Dritte Reich routinely conducted on its citizens.
What next? Who are going to be the Home Office's henchmen? Reincarnations of Reinhard Heydrich or Heinrich Himmler? Who'll be the Ministry of Truth's spokesman, Joseph Goebbels perhaps. And I suppose Alfred Rosenberg will be the new Minister for Incarcerations.
There's at least one virtue in having lived under a dictatorship, and there's more than one in losing a war! What's common to both is that those who've experienced either are forever very perceptive of the incremental, seemingly innocuous, steps that eventually produced them.
It seems to me that the naivety of the British People comes from the fact that they've experienced neither in recent centuries and that it's a potential tragedy in the making.
"Late? We've been covering this for YEARS! Here's a report from 2010."
Yeah, right, and I've posted to some of them, although not that one. It was just bad wording on my part, being Sunday I heard it on a news broadcast before reading it on El Reg, normally it's vice versa.
Either way, it's depressing.
If the securicrats continue attacking the freedoms of the netizens then it wouldn't be beyond the abilities of the latter to attach signature files to every e-mail, forum post and every second tweet etc saying something like:
"DISCLAIMER: I am not a terrorist, I dont have any bombs, semtex.... I don't sell skunk, ecstacy, ketamine ... I don't collect photographs of kids ... I don't go on jihad ... If this has triggered any illegal spying systems, I do apologise." ( fill in the gaps to your own taste).
We are assured that they don't do routine scanning of everything we write, so that would be OK then, wouldn't it?.
Sign the e-petition against this:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/32400
Its absolute joke, who ever is advising them on these policies must either be:
a) a monitoring solution provider
b) a storage array provider
c) completely computer illiterate
These measures will do nothing to combat terrorism or organized crime, its just spying on everyday people.
I can also see this being open to abuse by the government, how long before they are actively reading your emails and censoring or even completely blocking them from transmission, or altering content and redirecting you from the anti gov site you want to visit to their pro regime website.
"I can also see this being open to abuse by the government, how long before they are actively reading your emails and censoring or even completely blocking them from transmission, or altering content and redirecting you from the anti gov site you want to visit to their pro regime website."
Absolutely, and just think, our government don't even have a "Do no evil" policy!
Just as long as there is the easiest of stealthy provision for constant surveillance of all MPs communications, past and present, for of course none of them ever imagine themselves giving up any dodgy powers they may have bought or been paid for, even whenever they have been turfed out of office at a general election or disgraced themselves whilst in office by virtue of the arrogant strokes they have pulled treating the electorate as ignorant fools.
The general global consensus appears to be that some of the biggest crooks are in government and/or in league with governments and in political parties vying to be elected as government. It would then be most irresponsible not to take all necessary measures to ensure fair play on a level playing field. Or are there to be notable exceptions to snooping to allow for actions which are not in the public interest?
How do you think that will fair in the transparent and open court of public opinion?
From eureferendum.blogspot.co.uk
<quote>
Now this may be a coincidence, but don't we have a Data Retention Directive, otherwise known as Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006?
Isn't this the directive which requires member states to oblige providers of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks to retain traffic and location data for between six months and two years for the purpose of the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime?
And didn't the EU commission last year start a review of the rules, with a view to proposing an improved legal framework? Wasn't that then followed by a proposal for a comprehensive reform of the system?
Then, a few months later, up pops the UK government with some proposals of its own. Are we supposed to believe that this is a complete coincidence? Does anyone believe that, with data retention being an occupied field, the British government is working entirely independently, and has not consulted with the commission on this?
</quote>
Perhaps, like the VAT on pasties, another case of HMG pretending it's in control when really it's the EU wot dun it?
If they think they can blame it on Europe, they will.
Personally, I think this smells more of our own Home Office and GCHQ. It doesn't usually take long for new ministers to be brow-beaten into accepting their department's bidding and this is no exception. The Home Office has scuppered more than one political career, so they will have some leverage.
We should take the fight to them and demand overhaul of the permanent civil service so that the principles for which we vote can't be undermined by unelected officials. Breath holding is optional, though.
"We should take the fight to them ..."
we shall defend our Privacy,
whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the switches,
we shall fight on the bulletin boards,
we shall fight in the server farms and in the data centres,
we shall fight in the interwebs,
we shall never surrender
The point is that generally the politicos won't blame "Europe", even though their powers to govern are increasingly given away to Brussels. The main-stream media generally don't report this, either by ignorance or because it doesn't fit the addenda. As the quoted article says, data collection is an "occupied field" so they have no choice but to kow tow to the EU.
"Isn't this the directive which requires member states to oblige providers of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks to retain traffic and location data for between six months and two years for the purpose of the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime?"
It is. And while it was passed when (IIRC) Germany was on the chair it was drafted in the UK.
"That challenge relates to how terrorists use the internet."
Yeah, 'cos they all send bloody obvious emails with stupid subjects likes, " Al-Q latest target list, LOL :) "!
For flip's sake, what planet do these moron politicians come from? This is nothing to do with terorrists, more like these slimy politicians and their mates in various IT contract and supply companies were a little upset when it got shelved before , missing out on all that free UK Gov cash they brought it back to life again.
As soon as the uproar dies down the the thing looks like it will be killed off again old Dave and his mates will wheel out the trump card, Child Porn! "Do you want your kids at risk?! Do you?!!!".
...same as the old boss
Politicians. Really doesn't matter what party they're from. When in opposition, they're all standing up for 'the people', as soon as they're in office, they want a police state and it's the other guys going on about civil liberties.
If only we could chuck out all the politicians and replace them with members of the public selected like a jury system. And make buying off an MP akin to buying off a jury - with a long stretch in prison.
Until then, expect the country to continue being run by power-crazed, liars, cheats and thieves.
When I saw this on the BBC News website yesterday, my though processes were as follows:
It's an April Fool story by the BBC, and a pretty poor one. - No it's not.
Haven't I heard this somewhere before? - TPTB still think they can drink from a firehose then.
Is the government really that stupid? - Yes
Better stock up on pasties and put some fuel in the car. - Am I really that stupid? - No.
Something must be done at once. - It's lunch time - I think I'll have the soup.
Is it time for everyone to start sending emails with trigger words to MPs to try and flood the system?
I'm always interested when government tells us to be open and not to fear if we have nothing to hide - but then puts walls, barriers and laws up to make sure we can't read their documents, even though we the people paid for them...
"just how the hell would that work?"
It wouldn't, and couldn't, work.
Even if the security services had the ability to crack and trace secure comms through anonymising proxies and onion skin routers / darknet they are more likely to discover they have spent £1000's on tracing someone's holiday pics as the latest terrorist master plan.
No better time to bury the bad news, eh?
It will be a (dubious) pleasure to see Labour suits labouring over how awfully intrusive the proposed legislation is, not a twitch on their well-groomed faces. And watch how the Deputy Sheriff tries to sit on the fence, and be on both sides of the fence at the same time, wonderful.
but, to mention a valid point somebody's already made - why is everyone so hysterical about this proposed gov snooping, when millions of you, dear netizens, are quite happy for Google to record not only who you send your g-mails to and who you receive them from, but also scan, and no doubt, process the contents of those messages. How come you trust a mega-corporation with their luvely "do no evil" (unless you have something to hide, right?) but you shy away from the gentle embrace of the government you elected yourselves? Is it because you took a carrot from google, but will only get a stick from the Man at No 10? :D
So because corporations are trying to look at our data, our government instead of thinking 'how can we stop this invasion of privacy for our citizens', thinks 'how can we get a piece of this.'
Also because Google have my email (don't use them myself), that means the government should have a record of all my on-line activity? Talk about a false equivalency...
"but you shy away from the gentle embrace of the government you elected yourselves?"
except, (and here's the kicker) no one did vote for them.....
You find me one person in this country that actually voted for this current government, this so-called coalition.
There may well be some people that voted for that smug git cameron to be their joyous leader, but i sure as hell wasn't one of them.
While were on that subject, was any one here even given the chance to vote for Gordon Brown to serve as our prime minister? No? Didn't think so.
There are many countries around the world that if they were suffering from the same brand of 'democracy' that we are, would find themselves being 'liberated' but because we live in the good old United States of Great Britain, we're just left to get on with it.
But, to get back to your point about google, they want my information so they can try and sell me things that I don't want, and can easily ignore, in exchange for giving me an amazing amount of 'free' shit on line (email, maps, videos, search......) big deal.
The government want to keep tabs on everyone, with the possibility of black bagging anyone who is 'disagreeable' BIG FUCKING DEAL !!
A few key facts for the GovTards to understand.
1. It is simple and straightforward to secure your internet comms such that nobody can determine either who you are communicating with, or the contents of that communiaction.
2. At the moment, the security services can apply for an intercept on anyone they legitimately suspect (have no problem with this).
3. As the suspect in 2. will not know their comms are being intercepted, there is a fair to good chance they won't be taking steps to obfuscate them.
4. If this "net-snoop" plan was in force, then the suspect in 2. would know his comms were being intercepted and would (unless he was a complete moron) be sure to take the simple steps outlined in 1.
5. At the moment, most people don't try to obfuscate their comms. They may use encryption, but few use anon proxies, TOR, JAP, etc. If the net-snoop plan came into force many more people would use these tools for their legitimate and above-board comms purely because they value their privacy.
6. The upshot of this is this plan will ensure that the "security services" won't be able to read or trace all but the most stupid crim's and terrorist's comms and will have more trouble isolating suspicious obfuscated traffic from that of people who merely don't like being spied upon.
In other words, this is likely to actually make it harder to prevent the next 9/11.
Of course it won't prevent terrorist attacks the government like them because they're a good excuse to piss more tax money away on the IT systems they've been bribed to implement.
Anybody who still thinks that the govenrnent want to stop terrorism probably also think that Dr Mbenge Ngobo from Nigeria really does want to send them SIX MILLION DOLLARS US.
Since all my emails are sent through my own dedicated server based in the US over an encrypted connection they can try and monitor my emails as much as they want they won't get very far unless they manage to get some trojan onto my pc or on the server.
Since lots of web based email services now turn on https as the default how are they going to monitor who emails who when its encryped unless they require Google, yahoo, Microsoft etc to give them an backdoor to their servers.
"Since lots of web based email services now turn on https as the default how are they going to monitor who emails who when its encryped unless they require Google, yahoo, Microsoft etc to give them an backdoor to their servers."
If you are watching a HTTPS connection from it's start you can basically pick up the cookie that is set by the server on the client's machine. This cookie can then typically be used to assume the unsuspecting user's HTTPS session.
They don't need to monitor the traffic from you to the mail server...just the unencrypted SMTP traffic between mail servers. Using SSL to your web server won't help you - only encrypted mail stands a chance (e.g PGP/GPG). Even then, then still know who was mailing whom (as no doubt their US counterparts will have the info they need from any US SMTP servers).
Basically - no back-door necessary.
"Since lots of web based email services now turn on https as the default how are they going to monitor who emails who when its encryped unless they require Google, yahoo, Microsoft etc to give them an backdoor to their servers."
You might like to see what's available under the PATRIOT act.
US/UK/Canada "intelligence" sharing has been a reality for *decades*.
You might have trouble getting a UK suspect out of the US without *evidence* but slipping a copy of pretty much anything is no big issue for the boys at Fort Meade.
I give it only a generation or so before EVERYTHING on the Internet is encrypted and untraceable - BECAUSE of actions like this.
You get a court order, you can record what you like of my private life, for events linked to possible crimes. What more than that could you possibly want or need?
Just seems that the burden of proof (i.e. he IS doing something dodgy, at least we think so) is too high for the government to bear. If it is, and you can't even convince a judge that a court order might be a reasonable and fair response, then you have to think about exactly what you're trying to do and why.
Basically, the answer is "bypass our own law system", which is the scary part. Why would you *want* to do that when you can change all the laws and get feedback from judges?
Under what damp, mossy stone are the people who invent these ideas found? Here (not completely coherently, I admit) is what happens:
1. The Government passes the law
2. The criminals, terrorists, pædophiles, and others who already know about Tor, Vpns, PGP, GPG, and ZPhone carry on their business as usual
3. The taxpayer, or the Internet user, foots the bill for this circus
4. The "system" gets flooded by everyone's taglines which say "I am neither drug dealer, terrorist, people trafficker, pædophile, politician, nor lawyer"
5. The whole exercise has zero effect, but no-one can prove it
6. A few years from now, when the Stalinists take over, we're all screwed
It doesn't have zero effect.
Remember the last "we must fight the terrorists" data act? The one that was used by local councils to check which schools your kids should goto or who was letting their dogs crap in the park?
This same data is going to the same local councils. Complain about the potholes in the road and the council can do a quick check of which porn sites you have been visiting before writing you a letter suggesting you apologise before the list gets sent to your kids school or your employer.
Well..that's nonsense....so you may as well take down your curtains and remove your blinds...you've nothing to hide anyway...oh please! dress up for goodness sake, your nudity offends me!
When are we going to stand together to demand this is stopped? Oh yeah, just after we stop the NHS reforms and put an end to war...good luck folks :)
Now, how can I use this new legislation for my gain......
"We need some leaders who can tell both to take a running jump."
It's an all too common occurrence that when politicians get into office--whether it's in the US, UK, Australia etc.--they immediately change their minds or become very circumspect on security matters. In fact, it's so common and its signature so distinctive that it must be singled out from all the usual disingenuous promises made by politicians.
Clearly, at security briefings etc., the establishment bureaucracy wheels out their very best version of Sir Humphrey Appleby who then proceeds to spook pollies with very frightening stories and disturbing 'facts' together with dire warnings about how truly courageous it would be for the politician not to follow this departmental advice, especially if xyz [list of dire events] were to happen under his or their watch.
It seems the security establishment has an extremely well-rehearsed and very successful formula for doing so.
I only wish that someone would break ranks and send the formula to WikiLeaks. Not only would our curiosities be satisfied, but also then we might be able to provide an effective inoculation against it.
"it would be for the politician not to follow this departmental advice, especially if xyz [list of dire events] were to happen under his or their watch."
Especially when said spooks are well practised in carrying out false flag operations. In the worst case, a few proles would end up dead but the state survives and that is all that counts.
This thing just won't die, regardless of who is in government. It's beginning to look as if "Prime Minister" is little more than an honorary title (like an Honorary Doctorate).
I just wish those who are really in charge would give us a proper insight into what so threatens us that we need to give up our freedom to counter it (no live demonstration needed, thanks).
So everyone will be using these then?
No they won't be, because the use of encryption etc must inevitably be made a criminal offence also.
Won't happen eh? It's already an offence not to know the password any encrypted file (or maybe just a file containing random data) found on your computer.
Whoever you vote for, Sir Humphrey always gets in.
I wanted to use the thumbs down, stop, wtf, fail, nuke and anon icons all at once. Can you give us a feature to do that?
Not only is this ridiculous, intrusive and fascist, it's probably also in breach of EU law. As for the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" crowd, I'm glad you feel so happy for the whole world to see your credit card details, bank statements, medical histories and love letters to your significant other an I look forward to reading them.
This sounds like a classic govt departmental land grab:
No clear scope or vision. Check
Vague mutterings about protection against terrorism, paedos and criminals. Check
No timescale or cost breakdown. Check
The security geezer on the radio this morning was even trying to use the heightened threat due to the Olympics and Jubilee as a ratchet device to increase the scare factor. Fortunately, David Davis was able to point out that these events would be in the past before this proposal could actually hit the statute books.
Hopefully, the cost and public backlash will get this kicked into the long grass again.
Even at Have Your Rant on the BBC, the usual "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" brigade are being drowned out by the anti's, some of whom are even presenting reasoned argument (well as reasoned as HYS ever gets).
The optimist in me hopes that this is consigned to the dustbin of politics quite quickly with minister claiming they have listed to the vox populaire and reconsidered.
If not, it may be time to man the barricades. Black helicopter 'cos I just can't be sure.
GCHQ have no busy tracking the general population in this way. It is an outrageous move reminiscent of East Germany's Stasi. This does seem to be generating a lot of anger on the newspaper websites, but if this is right then the anger will die down soon enough. It's actually very very depressing this is happening. The majority of the population will probably do nothing about this (they probably don't care). Our "democracy" is kaput; there's no alternative if you vote for Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems (not that I did; anyway, how long will our votes remain secret). Basically those in the coalition made a lot of noise about civil liberties but then don't seem to have done anything. Now they're going to do the very thing they originally condemned. Isn't this (by any definition) called lying? Well if it's going ahead I will make it as difficult for the spooks to track me: use cash for all transactions (though I can't avoid using a cash machine unfortunately); don't carry my mobile phone anywhere; use the internet as little as possible (particularly with reference to controversial or political topics). The truth is surveillance is going to get worse, not better. I might as well go & live with the Amish.
Currently, if you wish to use encryption, anonymising proxies, darknet etc etc, you at least need to make a modicum of effort to research it all. If this pile of shite goes ahead, all that info will be collated together in a glossy supplement, bundled with your favourite sunday paper, "Learn to protect yourself and your family online! Free with tomorrow's Mail on Sunday" and everyone who is even slightly bothered will be making a little effort to secure themselves to the gills.
So, one possible conclusion is that this is intended to build the ultimate social network map of "everyone else" - those that don't take such security precautions. This is suspicious at best.
How many more lives could be saved by spending the same money on improved road safety measures, domestic & workplace safety measures, disease prevention, and anti-smoking laws...? Potentially tens of thousands of lives would be saved every year.
It is madness to claim this is justified by terrorism.
Terrorism is one of the most improbable ways anyone in the UK will ever die (on average just 8 people per year). The same number of people die falling out of trees.
So once in place they will seek to obtain more value from the system. Opening it up to the NHS so helpful dietary advice emails can be sent to those with too many hits on McDonalds for example.
That is the trouble with delusional politicians and civil servants, they think they can do no wrong so don't see any problem implementing a system with potential to do enormous wrong.
"That is the trouble with delusional politicians and civil servants, they think they can do no wrong so don't see any problem implementing a system with potential to do enormous wrong."
They also assume the govt they are a part of will change into one they don't like.
I used to get tense when Blair went to america for his orders, and come back with another raft of iniquity to keep us n order. Now Cameron and his cronies are doing the same. Looks like his orders are to provide nodes for this:- http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/04/02/americas-new-data-centre-makes-uk-surveillance-plans-seem-petty/
The intelligence(?) services are already drowning in data. This makes it almost impossible for them to track the bad guys and figure out what they're up to, who they're contacting and so on. They even said so after the 9/11 and 7/7 atrocties. So why the fuck do they want to hoover up everything from everyone? It's going to make their job even harder and mean pissing away even more billions building the supercomputers and petabyte-plus stortage systems in a futile attempt to manage and monitor all that mass of useless data.
There is so much data flowing on the internet the security services and police cannot monitor it all, nor do they want too. All they want to be able to do, is to do what they can already do with the telephone network. The telephone network has for years provided a list of calls made and recieved, and when someone is suspected of a crime their call history is checked. A serious target might have their phone bugged, but it takes a lot of officers to live monitor a single phone line.
It is touching the faith some of our commentators have in the technological capabilities available to implement a survailence society. The government could wipe the unemployment queues in a moment to provide the service some of you think they are capable of.
IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Our security establishment just isn't big enough, and no government will pay for it to be so. I think that you would be very upset if the stuff that is done is stopped. Just how difficult do you want to make it to catch criminals and terrorists, impossible I guess, right up until you are the victim.
The state must always do distateful things and invade our privacy on occasion to protect society, it does this by exception, they need a reason to look.
you want your pension money? you are a terrorist.
you want investment in new homes and infrastructure? terrorist.
you want a living wage? yup terrorist again.
what's that, you want an end to illegal wars? well hot damn you must be a terrorist too.
and if your kid won't go into bondage to pay for a $tudent loan until he gets cancer and dies, well he must be a terrorist too.
See there's loads of terrorists out there, you just have to know where to look.
You forgot the terrorists who want to send their kids to the right school, the terrorists who let their dogs crap in the park and the utterly evil terrorists who dont fill their re-cycling bins correctly.
The bitter irony in all this is when labour wanted to introduce it, the liberals and the tories screamed to high heaven about it.
Now the condemns want to bring it in
And the 3 political parties wonder why an idiot like Galloway wins a by-election...
But to all el-reg readers... see you all in the ministry of love in a couple of years time.
"We've already got laws for fighting terrorism. And as I recall, they worked pretty well against the IRA."
Rather like Blair calling for ID cards when the IRA (Remember them? A real terrorist group with an actual *political* agenda beyond "re-introduce the caliphate form of govt back into Saudi Arabia. "And if your reaction is WTF is that? you would not be alone) was just on the verge of disbanding.
And at present it is perfectly legal to make masking random queries. On this massive intercept program by gchq it looks like all our data will be shared with the 5-eyes partners: Canada:Usa:Nz:Aus:Uk, unfortunately it looks like Canada was sharing all Intel from 2007 with Russia as well! I trust my government, but they now seem to want to share everything for brownie points, do I trust all these other governments, just Who will have my data and ultimately, Why?
Track me not ff and chrome plug-in, we need some other solutions to legally avoid workfactor reduction as many ccdp avoidance systems will have been bug-doored
For anyone who doesn't know this, steganography is useful too.
Just write anything you need to in notepad, save it, and then zip/rar/7z the document.
Then do this:
Start -> Run -> cmd -> copy /b image_of_your_choice.jpg+text_file_name.zip C:\output.jpg
All someone needs to do now is change output.jpg to output.zip and extract the files!
This might not work for larger files though.
Another little unpleasantness - they will be apparently keeping records for 2 years, so when they decide George Galloway is a Menace To Society, they can go back and pick out all those who visited the Respect website and send round the PCSOs for a bit of truncheon based re-education...
Like the vast majority of commentators, I saw this on the BBC website and thought it was an April Fool's prank. To my horror, it really is going to be passed as law.
It is not just the invasiveness and scope that concerns me, as well as the lack of accountability (cornerstone of our legal system - although Habeus Corpeus has been under attack with extended right to detain), but the billions of pounds that will inevitably be wasted under the guise of yet another massive IT contract with poor scope, poor execution and total disregard for Total Cost of Ownership, and like the national ID cards, another pet project that will spectacularly fail to meet the main pillar supporting its rationale.
HS2
Energy strategy (lack thereof)
In these times of so-called austerity and cuts in various social services, trust politicians of ALL stripes, to think of yet more ingenious ways to waste money on projects with nebulous ends.
Word of warning: take a look across the channel at our French chums, and the success of Marie Le Pen. The National Front were the 3rd biggest party in the 70s - when people become disgruntled with mainstream politics, the fringe parties gain a degree of legitimacy.
Good grief! Does this mean I'm forced to vote Green at General Elections?! Or the most respectable Monster Raving Looney Party?
Discovers it is not and decides "F**k it lets make it happen."
Britards you need to rescue your elected leaders from their state of fear.
Consider writing to your MP's. Tell them *why* it's expensive, it's *grossly* disproportionate, it'll dump even the *rudimentary* oversight of the Surveillance Commissioner in favor of *unlimited* dumping of every comms log (which is essentially what is being proposed) from *every* comms provider (remind them how f**king expensive this storage will be)
...and in every way, I come to fear my own "elected" government than the terrorists.
I say "elected" as almost all the MPs come from the same morally bankrupt, public-school educated, elitist, holier-than-thou social class. They have no concept of the real world.
Freedom is a weapon. A weapon of the people against a corrupt regime. This is why our government wished to remove it from our grasp.
I'm paraphrasing, but I saw some authority figure on TV this morning basically saying the normal people dont need to worry about this surveillance.
Sounds more than a little like 'if you've got nothing to hide' which of course is rubbish.
Even if you trust this government (which would be follish), once the system is set up who knows whether it will be abused or not.
INAL but didn't the queen swear an oath to protect her subject's liberties during her coronation ?
Wouldn't announcing such an anti-libertarian law on live TV (and thereby giving her implied assent to it) be in direct contradiction to her Coronation Oath ?
It seems the Queen may need to be reminded that Liberty is not the same as Safety. Keeping us safe at the expense of our liberties is not what her subjects expect of Her or her Government. We should be striving for a balance between the those two things. Even then liberty without safety is far more preferable to safety without liberty - that is ultimately a prison.
As the final arbiter of Law in this land it is surely time that the Queen started to protect us from such unjust laws, not for her to be promoting them live on TV.
The present uproar concerning privacy, tactically, ironically or perhaps even coincidentally announced on April 1st, is a deliberate ploy of misdirection designed to draw attention away from the real thorn in the government's side, the NHS. Text book spin. And it appears to be working very well indeed.
http://domesticempire.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/all-this-nhs-spin-is-making-me-dizzy/
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