Subjects! Speek your branes to Parliament on the Snoopers' Charter The government committee tasked with scrutinising the highly controversial Investigatory Powers Bill, which was this week waved through Parliament by an overwhelming majority of MPs, now wants evidence from Joe Public. After receiving its second reading in the House of Commons this week, the so-called Snoopers' Charter is set …
You were probably hoping that those that didn't approve would vote against it, not just all take an early day and not bother voting at all.
That's possibly the most disgusting part of this whole disgusting episode... Those that are paid to represent us, doing sod all.
"That's possibly the most disgusting part of this whole disgusting episode... Those that are paid to represent us, doing sod all."
Yep. I got a response from my MP (SNP, and I didn't vote for him) yesterday to a letter I sent regarding the IPB prior to the vote, in which he said, basically "we think this is a bad Bill, so we did nothing!" I replied that the actions of the SNP and Labour were cowardly and weak, and explained that the actions of the Lib Dems (a close second in the last election in this constituency) and the Greens (okay, their only MP) meant that they will be getting more favourable scrutiny from me in the future. It will make no difference - the SNP are indistinguishable from Labour and Tory parties, with a very nasty streak of Scottish Presbyterian authoritarianism thrown in (see the Named Person Scheme - the No2NP website is good) for an example.
"@a cynic, How were you to know the opposition would want exactly the same powers (or more) for the next time they were in power."
Because they wanted it the last time they were in power?
I think there must be something in the water that civil servants feed to new Home Secretaries, that tern them into control freaks.
Home secretaries can listen to the public, who occasionally scold them in a generalised way about a barely coherent stream of things that float across their consciousness as and when they get around to it, and with lots of us contradicting each other...
... or they can listen to their own officials, who maintain full-time teams of highly intelligent, highly talented people with no other purpose in life than to manipulate the Home Secretary in a single, coherent direction.
Is it any wonder, we always lose that contest?
As well as to the email address given in the article. As far as I'm concerned, this is tantamount to those in power declaring war on the rest of us in the UK.
C'mon folks, as many of us as possible need to barrage Parliament to explain as simply and politely as possible why the Snoopers Charter is a bad idea, and also to make it clear that should such idiotic legislation go through, there will be determined resistance from the general populace, and why.
Did you point out that it will be technically impossible for MPs to be excluded from the bulk collection?
Point out that any attempt to create filters for them just provides a spy upon list that all ICR collectors would have to have, so would definitely leak and the risk to National Security that would create?
Or that the history for new MPs would already be available and thus available to pervert the course of democracy for bad players?
Let's face facts.
Labour started all this.
The conservatives have a carried it on.
Labour are now abstaining.
Both political parties are determined to get this law regardless of what us peons think.
Writing to them as I have found is a waste of time, I will however try again.
I think the time is ripe for a new political party, one that stands for the people, not the popular bullshit peddled by the press, one that allows the people to voice concerns and opinions and if some are rejected then it is done in a way that explains fully the reasons without resorting to said popular media bullshit. However for this to happen the media needs to be separated from the politicians which is something neither will allow. It would also need people not motivated by greed which probably equates to about 5% of the population, on second thoughts forget it...
"I think the time is ripe for a new political party, one that stands for the people, not the popular bullshit peddled by the press, one that allows the people to voice concerns and opinions and if some are rejected then it is done in a way that explains fully the reasons without resorting to said popular media bullshit. "
I've upvoted you, but a huge part of the problem is the party system. It is inherently corrupt. What we need is a way of supporting independent candidates who will actually listen to their constituents. I'm at a loss as to how this would happen because of the media thing, and the FPtP voting system - and the ingrained habit of people voting for a party not a candidate. We have a lot of clever people here - any ideas?
The thing is, the only thing you can put in a letter to your MP that might convince them would be a detailed explanation of what they can say when the Daily Mail (or similar) has a headline like "Snoopers Charter could have stopped terrorists!!!!1!!!!11!!". They won't vote against it as long as they're worried that the press will use that vote against them next time some bampot decides to blow themselves up in public.
Politicians want nothing more than to get re-elected so they have to 'think of the children', publicly at least.
... between knowing that it would be a travesty to sit on my hands and do nothing versus the belief that none of this will matter one single solitary iota.
Once elected, MPs develop selective deafness for a period of approximately 4 years 11 months - where those views of the electorate that are not in tune with the wishes of the Grand Poobah are not to be paid any really meaningful attention.
The abdication of responsibility by the shiftless shower of abstainers was an unforgivable travesty - creating the impression that these measures are not particularly objectionable. But then again - Nanny Labour wanted many of these in its own time. The SNP? Who knows what game they are playing?
Or was there leverage brought to bear....
A pox on all their houses - I want a None of the Above option at the next election
Once this has gone through there might not be another election. As most have noted, Labour want this just as much as the Tories. Remember Gordon Brown's 'government of all the talents'? Seemed to me at the time that that might have been code for 'one party state'.
At first I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
Without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
Thinking how you did me wrong
And I grew strong
And I learned how to get along
And so you're back
From outer space
I just walked in to find you here
With that sad look upon your face
I should have changed that stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I had known for just one second
You'd be back to bother me
Go on now go walk out the door
Just turn around now
'Cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
Did you think I'd crumble
Did you think I'd lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
Oh as long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
And I'll survive
I will survive (hey-hey)
It took all the strength I had
Not to fall apart
Kept trying hard to mend
The pieces of my broken heart
And I spent oh so many nights
Just feeling sorry for myself
I used to cry
But now I hold my head up high
And you see me
Somebody new
I'm not that chained up little person
Still in love with you
And so you felt like dropping in
And just expect me to be free
And now I'm saving all my loving
For someone who's loving me
Go on now go walk out the door
Just turn around now
'Cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one who tried to break me with goodbye
Did you think I'd crumble
Did you think I'd lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
Oh as long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
And I'll survive
I will survive
[x2]
Send a letter, not an email.
Be concise. No more than a page if possible.
Suggest alternatives. No I don't want to, but you'll hear the plaintive cry of the Home Secretary, "If not this then how will we protect Her Maj's subjects from paedos, terrorists, drug dealers and money launderers*"
It's got to be worth a shot.
Or to put it another way, "If you tolerate this, then your children will be next."
*IE The usual people to put the s**t up the proles.
...and instead, flood your ICR to render the data meaningless:
Set loopcount to a very big number or even edit to leave it to run forever, leave this powershell running on multiple VMs and go on holiday:
$loopCount = 20
$ListofHostnames = @()
do {
Clear-Variable HostName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
$Octet1 = Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 255
$Octet2 = Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 255
$Octet3 = Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 255
$Octet4 = Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 255
$RandomIP4 = "$Octet1.$Octet2.$Octet3.$Octet4"
write-host "Target IP Address: $RandomIP4"
$HostName = [System.Net.Dns]::GetHostByAddress($RandomIP4)
$HostName.HostName
write-host "Resultant Hostname: $($HostName.hostname)"
if ($HostName.hostname.length -gt 0) {
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $HostName.hostname
(Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $HostName.hostname).Links.Href
$ListofHostnames += $HostName.HostName
}
$loopCount --
Write-Host "New loop: $loopCount" -ForegroundColor Magenta
} until ($loopCount -eq 0)
$ListofHostnames
Then your ISP has to buy more and more storage capacity to store all these randomised addresses
Then you get charged more for internet to cover the cost
Then the government catch wind of this & a secondary instrument is used to quietly modify the IP act to make deliberate activity like this illegal, your door gets kicked in by heavily armed men, your systems are taken away, you're charged with obstruction, you can't talk to your lawyer about it or even present a defence because of the gagging clauses and you spend the rest of your life sucking some MP's dick as a punishment.
If this law gets passed in pretty much any form the government would accept, we are dog food, our lives will only exist at their sufferance
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