Well...
We knew it was coming but it doesn't make it any easier to take. I can only hope that some crazy amount of sanity somehow prevails in parliament when it is voted for and it gets rejected.
The first session of the new Parliament was opened by the Queen today and, as expected, a renewed push for a Snoopers' Charter was high on the agenda. Her Majesty said: Measures will also be brought forward to promote social cohesion and protect people by tackling extremism. New legislation will modernise the law on …
In this particular respect David Davis is a Tory with some conscience around Civil liberties. There are a few others as well.
Infact there were 10 Tory MP's who voted against the last time, 20 odd labour and the whole of the SNP.
Plus the lords have kicked it into touch on numerous occasions inspite of a large Tory majority.
There's plenty of fight in the dog yet....
We need to write to our MP's saying we will track and remember how they voted on this issue when the next election comes round.
Donate money and time to Liberty, Privacy International, Big Brother Watch and any political party who comes out against it. Then tell your MP about that too.
It can be fought if we are passionate and articulate enough.
As techies we need to educate (but not lecture or hector) the rest of our society on why this is such a bad idea, something we do badly currently - because we know it so instinctively that we dont provide good examples to that the general public care about.
As techies we need to educate (but not lecture or hector) the rest of our society on why this is such a bad idea, something we do badly currently - because we know it so instinctively that we dont provide good examples to that the general public care about.
Oh, you'd like to think that wouldn't you? However, I had an interesting conversation just after the start of the Snowden revelations with a Gen Y who shall remain nameless. They were and are your stereotypical Facebook centric Twitterati. When I tried to explain just how much data is being captured and stored forever and the level of invasiveness involved their answer was, and remained, that they didn't have anything to hide (a bold statement indeed) and didn't care. Unfortunately there is that level of stupidity indoctrination present in the masses that I can honestly believe the "think of the children" approach coupled with a laissez faire attitude would get a majority public support. There are those that are fully ignorant of entities like the Stazi, have no concept of the Orwellian nightmare we approach, or simply couldn't give less of a shit provided everyone gets their selfie at bar X update.
However, I had an interesting conversation just after the start of the Snowden revelations with a Gen Y who shall remain nameless. They were and are your stereotypical Facebook centric Twitterati.
Hell, Mark...name him or her (or them). IMHO, public ridicule on their oh-so-precious "social meeja" is quite likely the only lever that will get them off of top dead center and activate what passes for synapses in these people.
They hold a majority of 12, so if the rest of Parliament vote No, it isn't that far out to think 12 Tory MP's with a conscience could vote no as well.
That's the government majority but, as the Ulster unionists will generally vote with the government (there will be sweetener of course), and Sinn Fein MPs don't take their seats, the working majority is actually quite a bit more. At least when it comes to regressive measures.
Now, if they were to try and introduce any progressive legislation then that majority will look a lot thinner.
Don't forget the Bankers now pay 70% less tax to UK, than they did in 2012..(big thanks Dave, we are all in it together rolling in cash!!!).
Even though their profit's have recovered to pre-crash levels.
That will really punish them for fucking us all over!!!!!.
mmm, I wonder who is making up that Tax shortfall?
This post has been deleted by its author
Come on, Labour will only quibble over the fact it doesn't go nearly far enough.
And the Lords will harrumph and then back down because of some piece of nonsense called the Salisbury Convention that they will not block a manifesto commitment no matter how dangerous or insane it is.
Enacting Big Brother, supporting tax evasion, killing the NHS, privatising vital governmental services (no conflicts of interest, honest), trying to exit the EU (for all its ills, the EU is about the only thing keeping the Labtory duopoly in check)....certainly looking like time to leave the UK and move to an actual democracy.
Go on then. I'm fed up of all these "I'm off" whingers, but yet they're still here. If it's that bad, go.
I'll be writing to my MP, who I've met when he was going door-to-door prior to elections, and does seem to have a conscience. Doubt it'll do any good, but at least it's doing something positive.
Serious question! Is there anyone keeping a list of awesome places to live? Like ones where the government isn't on a brisk dive towards Orwellian disaster?
I have vague hopes that if they manage to drag us out of Europe the EU might offer some kind of asylum scheme to those of us who find more value in belonging to the EU than in belonging to England...
Really?
About anything interesting?
The turkeys just voted for Christmas, and you think they care enough to demonstrate?
The Conservatives have total control [almost] of the press via their owners (TRTGAS) (Too Rich To Give A Shit), control of the few who insist on contrary points of view will come via "extremist views".
The labour party is about to be de-funded, opposing views from charitable and social organisations has been neutered by the "gagging" law...union strikes are about to be ended by insisting on an over-40% vote (although we have a gov elected by either 24% or 34%, deciding on your viewpoint)
An interesting 5 years is coming....although whether we have any future elections is another debating point!
No Bernard, Canada is not a suitable candidate for you to escape a tyrannical gov of your own.
We are in bed with the US and our liberties are being taken away at a faster rate then ever before.
We pretty much live in a conservative, police state where the gov pushes anti terror bills like the US Patriot act, police officers are allowed to shoot people in the streets with no consequences, etc, etc, etc.
If you think New Zealand is clean, you haven't been following things much.
The NHS stuff that Cameron's trying to bang through here was tried under the tory-equivalent National party in the 1990s. When public hopsitals end up siccing debt collectors on people because of mandatory charges when they're ill, your public health system is in a bad state.
Apart from that, look at http://www.laudafinem.com/ and http://e2nz.org/ - kiwiland has more problems than the UK does and a wilfully clueless population who prefer to believe "none of that stuff can happen here"
Will you Labour supporters stop claiming the Tories are trying to kill the NHS?
They've been in power for about 40 years since the NHS was founded. If they intend to kill the NHS, they're taking their time about it.
The only health minister to ever privatise an NHS hospital was Andy Burnham ( Labour ). Well done that man, except when he started lying about it.
If they intend to kill the NHS, they're taking their time about it.
They were taking their time, all pretence has long since passed. Not for nothing but every time they've been in government previously they've all but completely choked off enough funding so it can't run effectively - ostensibly so people would demand some "new" (see: old/bad) system to replace it and they can sell the bits off it to their mates at massive discounts on the true value. Not that I'd ever suggest the Tories are corrupt like they work for FIFA or something but they have a pretty substantial track record of doing this with taxpayer owned assets.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and eternal surveillance and control is the price of ... err, hold on, freedom? They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
But it's only for terrorists and paedophiles, so good, honest, upstanding folks like us have nothing to worry about. I'm actually surprised they haven't arrested them all already, given that they obviously know who they are, i.e. not us. Obviously.
She got to keep her hat and head since Brits can't be arsed to overthrow the monarchy.
Now your beloved ruler gets made to regurgitate phrases such as "social cohesion" and "tackling extremism" as David "I'm a real human" Cameron fondles your collective privates.
Feels bad Clegg :/
Provide for appropriate oversight and safeguard arrangements
Appropriate by whose definition? Those that actively seek to avoid any such oversight?
Don't forget that until recently the government was repeating the guff about GCHQ's activities being legal, and when it was found to be illegal they simply changed the law. These are the people we're relying upon to define 'appropriate'.
They didn't change the law, what they said was 'It was illegal before because the population didn't know about it, but now they do (because of Snowdon) it's fine'.
So as long as you're fully aware of how much the government is spying on you, then it's legal, and if you don't know, then it's illegal, but they're going to do it anyway.
Oh, what a *lovely* expression! Sounds meaningful, but is actually complete BS.
What is this "gap"? The gap between being able to monitor *some* communications and being able to monitor *all* communications? The one between having the ability to track a few people and all the people?
Or maybe it's the gap between our Civil Liberties and their idea of a Total Surveillance State?
About the only good news is that they've kicked their stupid plans to repeal the Human Rights Act into the long grass because they finally realised they weren't going to be able to rush that one through (but, as this shows, that doesn't mean they won't try to sneak it through in a couple of years...)
Unless the Good Friday Agreement is rewritten and the status of devolution revisited for Wales and Scotland then they'll never be able to put a bill of rights into place.
Thank God.
For that matter, how can the Data Retention Directive be unacceptably broad at the EU level, but something like the Snoopers Charter can exist at the national level?
The capability gap argument is bullshit you're right. The ability to monitor phone "metadata" as they say only exists because the data is held for billing purposes - once you create the data it's arguably fair game for law enforcement.
The records of who people are emailing, and who and what they're tweeting and something something facebook both doesn't need to be held for billing and is encrypted anyway. This means to trawl through this data you actually need to do two wholly new things - have companies track/record packets and probably somewhere decrypt them.
That's not a capability gap caused by technology, it's a capability gap caused by phone companies pretending we still use mechanically switched telephone networks and ripping everybody off.
If they need to see somebody's comms they should have to require access on an individual basis like they're supposed to do with phone lines because that's the equivalent - they ARE looking at content, the "metadata" IS the content which is precisely why it's so useful if you're going on a fishing expedition. Also, it shouldn't be admissible in court like other wiretap evidence for the same reasons (it's actually not anyway, courts won't have it, but it should be made explicit in the primary law).
Hate to break it to you, but No. Not even a significant chunk of the population is looking into encrypting their communications.
What they are interested in though is Posh&Becks and Jordan. So maybe we should just rename the next cypher suite after them to rumble up some interest eh?
In the mean time I'm trying to message my contacts via encrypted channels in case the day comes and I need it so it won't set off alarm bells. That and I quite like the idea of my messages only being read by the intended recipient.
"Most of the people I know who have VPN's do it to fool netflix and iPlayer rather than anything to do with privacy."
That's because simple VPNs cannot provide you with privacy. There's still a simple 1:1 connection to you and if you pay even to your bank account. If you want privacy you use Tor.
"Hate to break it to you, but No. Not even a significant chunk of the population is looking into encrypting their communications."
True, but there are a lot of us who are going to do it for them. All our websites & forums are going https (yes I know GCHQ can crack that but they but won't have the resources for routine mass surveillance). The majors have done it already.
Which leaves mainly email - our mailservers are encrypted and out of the uk. So, I guess are the major mass providers (GMail, Outlook etc) at the other end. Again can be read if 'of interest' to the government. But more difficult to screen routinely.
Which is what we want - for the rozzers to concentrate on real suspects, not go fishing around non-suspects.
...to promote social cohesion.....(or else.....)
Social cohesion is desirable but by bringing that concept into a legal framework you bring into being its evil twin -- if you're not into 'social cohesion' then you're are by definition a 'social deviant', a threat to the order and safety of 'society' (or to use oldspeak, "The Reich"). (Yes, folks, we've been down this particular road before.....but obviously it couldn't happen here, could it?) To add a further twist to this notice that the concept of social cohesion generally means 'people who agree with me and share my values'. This is a fluid concept. It will probably be bad enough in the hands of Ms May and cohorts but just imagine what would happen if you had an even more sociopathic bunch of politicians in possession of her toolkit.
This could get seriously nasty.
Data fetishists.
Their like f**king cockroaches.
My guess is that if less than 20 people had all their personal business spattered all over the media (the personal business they are so keen to collect on every one else) this would be dead for a decade.
Given that I think it's quite likely several of them would be liable for criminal prosecution as well.
Expect the usual "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" BS real soon now.
We are still a signatory to the EHRC, even if, (after the gov dump the law) as individuals, we are no longer allowed the same rights as the other signatories.
The Human Rights Act is not really a human rights act, since there is nothing at all to stop any government just dumping it. Now, if it was entrenched into law, and couldn't be dumped by any government without a referendum (preferably one needing a more-than-40% turnout.......
The government promises that anyone earning minimum wage and doing 30 hours a week will pay no tax.
Now call me stupid but,
30 * 6.70 * 52 = 10,452 (As of 1/10)
Tax Threshold = 10,600
So anyone currently working the full 52 weeks a year isn't paying tax anyway.
Do they really think people are that thick? Queen's Speech for working people my arse and don't get me started on the snoopers charter, that's the biggest festering pile of bullshit I've ever seen.
Yeah, I know Nick Clegg is currently about as popular as a fart in an elevator, but he's the one who scotched this nonsense back in 2012.
Then came the media frenzy of "Lib Dems have rolled over for the Tories on everything, boot 'em out". So now here we are.
Me, I never supported the Lib Dems because of some gibberish about tuitiion fees. I was for their stance on civil liberties. But it seems that's a vanishingly small minority stance, and so it's being appropriately steamrolled.
Too bloody right.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the entire concept of "tackling extremism". What happens to the definition of "extreme" once you have eliminated those currently considered to be in that category? Do you keep on redefining it until there is just one immaculately moderate person left standing?
-A.
"My government has expressed the will that it would like to snoop on everybody's communications like the then East German Stasi, I am completely against such a measure and will use every means at my disposal to stop this coming to pass."
In theory Liz has got significant powers and is more than just a puppet with Cameron's hand up the Royal Posterior.
I think you forget that before Dave got in (2010), he did a deal with royalty (kept very hush hush), so that they get £235M from renting the seabed for windmills (yes, that goes onto our power bills).
In return they reduced the welfare benefit they get directly by about £10m.
So he gave up £235M for £10M.
So expecting them to even give a shit is a bit much, they fucking love him (he's a relation too, something cousin)
(figures not precise as I'm lazy, find the true ones if you can be arsed and can find em, remember it was very hush hush!)
All of the Labour leader candidates that have come forward are very much New Labour, so you can bet authoritarianism runs in their veins - Cooper has hardly said a word about mass surveillance and went along with DRIP and Burnham was once in charge of the ID card project. The others sound like they're auditioning for Conservative party political broadcasts.
They'll enthusiastically vote for the proposals so that they can't be tarred as being 'soft on crime'. I suspect these proposals will pass with a couple of fig leaf amendments with massive majorities. And then we'll see another toothless incarnation of the Parliamentary committees set up to protect our freedoms that they've merrily put through a shredder.
Provide the police and intelligence agencies with the tools to keep you and your family safe.
By doing what they say, when they say it? My family is safe enough without this "feature" thankyouverymuch. No amount of snooping on everyone's comms is going to improve that.
Intelligence agencies have already proven they can't (or won't...) act on the information they do have. For fuck's sake don't give them more.
Here's a question to pose to Ms May should any of you be (un)lucky enough to meet her.
"Give me one, just one, scenario where the proposed measures could prevent a terrorist atrocity"?
As hard as I try, I cannot think of a single one. I can imagine how they might be used to bring accomplices to justice after an attack, but not to actually "keep us safe".
Add to that the fact that in every recent atrocity, the perpetrators were known to the authorities but couldn't be adequately monitored, despite being known risks, because of the lack of resources.
How they hell do they intend to "keeps us safe" from an unknown threat embedded in a humongous database of snoop data when they cant even protect us from the nutters they know about? Would it not be better to spend the money intended for this white elephant on some real human resources?
Measures will also be brought forward to promote social cohesion and protect people by tackling extremism.New legislation will modernise the law on communications data, improve the law on policing and criminal justice.
Et tu Yer Majesty? Geez, all I need is "Synergy", and I have Bingo on two cards!
Ah, so you have something to hide!
Not necessarily. I use VPN's, encryption in transit and at rest, changing MAC addresses, and outright lying by software concerning meta-data (referrer, OS, user-agent, fonts, ...). Just to give them a bit of a challenge, not too much. It's not that long ago I used to fix their gear when they couldn't, so I've a bit of a clue about these things.
The Snoopers' Charter certainly does at least one thing extremely well. It identifies practically all of those individuals worthy of further personal extreme attention, in both Parliamentary seats and much further beyond, just as this lost and confused soul found out to his reported consternation and public annoyance ........ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11634479/Douglas-Carswell-accosted-by-protestors-chanting-racist.html
Intellectually challenged and with a learning disability in elected ruling classes is a recipe for mounting disaster and ab fab fabless chaos/madness and mayhem. And who would argue that it is not well deserved and highly appropriate an APT ACT.
Why is everyone getting so worked up? It is not like the UK will be only country to impose restrictions on encryption. We will simply joining the great 'democracies', such as China, North Korea, and Iran.
All in seriousness, why the fuss?
Ban encryption? How?
Ban the use of Tor? People will simply run the application from a hidden volume on a Veracrypt encrypted USB drive (or memory card).
How is the government going to know you are using Tor? Packet-sniffing/DPI? I suspect Cameroon & May have never heard of obsf4.
Compulsory Key escrow for UK encrypted servers? What about servers abroad?
If the encryption on hotmail.co.UK, or gmail.co.UK is no longer safe. The answer is protonmail.CH.
How the hell do you ban an open-source app?
If a bill is written & phrased to prohibit certain technologies, I will bet the shirt on my back, that; -
By the time any Bill has gone through the Green Paper, & White Paper stages; voted upon in the Commons & Lords; Received Royal Ascent - There will be at least half-a-dozen mature open-source technologies which will provide at least the same, or more likely, better privacy, but will work in a way to skirt any law.
The British Government will lose any 'encryption war', even before minister have even fired the first shot.