back to article UK's GDPR replacement could wipe out oversight of live facial recognition

Biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner Professor Fraser Sampson has warned that independent oversight of facial recognition is at risk just as the policing minister plans to "embed" it into the force. He said this week that the widely slated use of facial recognition at the recent crowning of Charles III was "a …

  1. abend0c4 Silver badge

    Met Police facial recognition has been found to be "85 percent inaccurate"

    Just as well, or it would be constantly triggering in the Met canteen.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Met Police facial recognition has been found to be "85 percent inaccurate"

      It has been 100% accurate, the Met has not yet found what the culprits did do.

  2. ParlezVousFranglais

    Much like trying to ban end-to-end encryption, just another example of knee-jerk "won't somebody think of the children" legislation, which will be merrily voted through parliament because most of the clueless f**kwits have no idea of the consequences

    1. andy gibson

      It was used a couple of days ago in Wales. I think the whole point after the Manchester Arena bombing was that they WERE thinking of the children.

      https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/17/police-to-use-facial-recognition-technology-in-cardiff-during-beyonce-concert

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        if they were thinking of the children, the Arena concert wouldn't have been allowed in the first place...

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
          Joke

          Come on, Ariana Grande isn't that bad.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            She isn't as big as Ariana Venti though.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The reward for your support

    Now that THe Tory Party policy is shaped by the far right of the party or what the incumbents can get out of it for as long as they are in power there will be an erosion of freedom of the press, human rights, and oversight in any place people aren't looking until they are so unpopular they lose or they become a totalitarian state whichever comes first. Thank you for voting Brexit and supporting Boris. Hail the free market and white privilege.

    1. abend0c4 Silver badge

      Re: The reward for your support

      >Hail the free market

      A free market doesn't allow your mates to profit at everyone else's expense. I don't think you can chalk this particular round of malevolence up to capitalism: Johnson's attitude to business pretty much explains the current party thinking.

      1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

        Re: The reward for your support

        That's exactly what an unregulated free market does; it concentrates power in the hands of a few, at the expense of everyone else - those with the capital accrue more, and everyone else gets less. This is why regulation is vital, to prevent too much capital (and hence power) being accumulated by too few people. This is why the likes of Rees-Mogg talking about "cutting red tape" should ring all manner of alarm bells, because what this really means is "I want to do what I want with no oversight, and fuck the peons".

        Edit - note that I'm not advocating for replacing free-market economics with, for example, a command economy, as those don't work either. What I'm advocating for is the sort of anti-monopoly regulation that seems to be sorely lacking at the moment, and possibly escalating taxation on those who do manage to game the system and accumulate obscene wealth. Nobody should be obscenely wealthy, certainly not when others are going hungry.

        1. mikecoppicegreen
          Pirate

          Re: The reward for your support

          The ultimate expression of unregulated free enterprise is the stocking mask and the sawn-off shotgun.

        2. John H Woods Silver badge

          Re: The reward for your support

          Yes, it was a highly regulated free market that Adam Smith proposed, but the soi-disant Smith devotees seem perplexed by the very idea. In fact, if you quote Smith at them they usually tell you to stop quoting Marx. It's almost like they haven't read any of it (or, indeed, much of anything).

          1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

            Re: The reward for your support

            Most of them are actually adherents of the utter whack-job Ayn Rand.

      2. 43300 Silver badge

        Re: The reward for your support

        What we see in this country (and many others) is the fusion of government and big business - which is of course one of the central tenets of fascism.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The reward for your support

        It's not just Johnson's view though. The conservatives have never been the "party of business". Their tweed covered roots are in rural poltiics, farming...which is ironic, because they don't appear to have done a lot for the countryside or farming.

        We don't actually have a "party of business" in the UK...which is part of the problem. The only area of business that all parties meet on is they all universally hate the self employed...which is ironic, because to solve a problems they need to support the self employed...want more houses? You need more builders...builders are usually self employed...want a better standard of maintenance in rental properties? You need more trades people, they are usually self employed. Want to stimulate the tech sector and move projects along at a quicker pace? You need more techies / consultants...they are usually self employed.

        Yes, yes I know...there are plenty of in house techies, builders and trades people...but understand that the 100,000 person monolith you work for, is not representative of a population of 70million people with hundreds of thousands of businesses. Large businesses are not "most businesses"...most businesses are under 300 people and they almost always use freelance talent for specialist jobs.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The reward for your support

        All profit comes at someones expense. A free and open market implies fair and equal competition...therein lies the problem. I don't care that some people make grossly disproportionate amounts of profit, that is a symptom, I care that I cannot compete fairly for a piece of the action, because I don't always know a guy that knows a guy that can get me in. If we all had fair and equal access to the "free market" it would be far less common for monopolies to form and less likely that profits become disproportionate.

        Constructs patents, copyright and so on are barriers to free trade and progress because they skew the competition in the market.

        So what if John Smith, invented a ground breaking widget? He may have the savvy to invent something new, but he might be a total fucking numpty when it comes to making it commercially viable / scalable...which means for those of us that can make it viable, we have to wait a lifetime and hopefully not die by the time the patent expires to do something with it...if we haven't moved on and forgotten about the "ground breaking" tech or just done something else that is almost as good, but not quite.

        The way all this shit currently works, incentivises making the widget as cheap as possible in a country like China, putting it in a glossy, fancy box and selling it a massive margin. Which is abhorrent.

        You end up with mass produced, low quality tat, made out of shit materials at a premium price.

        We're moving into a time where patents will be fundamentally pointless anyway...because every man + dog will soon have a highly capable 3D printer that can use a wide range of materials to produce their own widgets.

        Patents only really protect an invention from a massive entity looking to produce millions of widgets at scale to sell to millions of people. It doesn't protect you from millions of people making one off widgets on their own equipment.

        If millions of people have the capability to create their own widgets on demand, what good is a patent? They are publically viewable...and you can't stop millions of people make one of something...where do you even start with that from a legal standpoint? How would you enforce it?

        We're at a point where, for me at least, it's possible to create higher quality "widgets" yourself at home. Daft things like replacement parts...I've made gears for lawnmowers, and replacement parts for printers myself (with very little CAD skill I might add) that are actually better than the more expensive "ready made" spares, because I can pick the material to use and over engineer it, because I'm not working to make fractions of pennies in the pound. Yes, a 3D print can take hours...but shipping a "genuine" spare can take weeks. Also, if you use 3D printing correctly, you can create moulds. Which only require you pour in a material (silicon, resin, whatever) to get the product you need at scale in a tough material.

    2. 43300 Silver badge

      Re: The reward for your support

      But Labour aren't any better - what the past few years have clearly demonstrated is that both sides absolutely love the concept of authoritarianism and watching everyone, all the time and in as many ways as possible.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: The reward for your support

        Is it coincidence that Home Secretaries of whatever party and despite previous on the record statements, end up wanting more Big Brother or is it the Home Office and/or Security Services that is strong-arming them in that direction?

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Re: The reward for your support

          Politicians want control, that's why they go into politics.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The reward for your support

            No, I believe it goes deeper than that. The Spooks and the Home Civil Service have some very nasty power-obsessed wankers at the top who are hell-bent on turning the UK into George Orwell's nightmare. It doesn't matter which party the minister is from. He or she doesn't really have all that much power, and they can be removed with the most trivial of scandals. You see the same thing in the US Biden administration. How much of Trump's power-grabbing laws have been repealed?

            I find it sad how the politicians can get away with wrecking the country for years and the only thing that gets rid of them are extramarital affairs, covid infractions and speeding tickets. It's exactly how the spooks like it.

            The Five Eyes are worried because they can see the world going to hell in a handbasket over the next decade and it's largely their fault. They need to crack down on human rights and individual freedoms to stand a chance of remaining in control when the masses become desperate and call for revolution.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: The reward for your support

              They're only fucked because they built their entire framework of spying / investigation around capturing unencrypted data...if everything becomes encrypted, they have nothing because they didn't bother to create any processes, methodologies or practices that work without slurping huge quantities of unencrypted data.

              Just like the fucking nerds that won't leave their mum's basement, these security agencies need to go outside once in a while.

        2. Graham Cobb Silver badge

          Re: The reward for your support

          A bit of both.

          The story goes that when Ken Clarke arrived a the Home Office, the spooks and police had a private meeting with him at which they showed all the Bad Things that would apparently happen if they didn't have Massively Increased Surveillance powers. He told them to piss off and sd a better job with the powers they already had. Apparently the meeting was very friendly and the spooks said at the end "well we had to try, didn't we?".

          Pushing for decreased civil liberties, and a massively surveilled and over-policed society, is nothing new and should always be resisted by the Home Secretary. Nothing particularly bad will happen.

          On the other hand, since Ken Clarke we have gone through an era of many Home Secretaries who do not understand what freedom is or why it is important. I understand why Blunkett felt that way - his disability meant he relied on the state for his day-to-day life and he was bound to feel the state was a power for good. However, most Home Secretaries have just cynically seen these powers as ways to damage political opponents or increase their non-democratic power.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The reward for your support

            >I understand why Blunkett felt that way - his disability meant he relied on the state for his day-to-day life

            When he was a mere councillor in Sheffield he was noted for his belief that Beria was a woolly liberal

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The reward for your support

            Clarke. The intelligent/principled side of the Conservatives. (More-or-less.) None of those are left after the recent purges.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The reward for your support

        "the past few years"

        Longer than that. New Labour were the ones who wanted to introduce mandatory ID cards.

        1. Wellyboot Silver badge

          Re: The reward for your support

          More than wanted, they'd started to roll out the volunteer phase not long before they were kicked out.

          One of the first (and best?) action of the Cameron/Clegg comedy duo was to dump the idea.

        2. Cynical Pie

          Re: The reward for your support

          I had a very interesting chat with the then HO Junior Minister Andy 'King of the North' Burnham at the time.

          He was responsible for ID Cards and wasn't particularly committed either way. The feeling I got was they saw the positives outweighing the negatives but as a rule they weren't overly sold on them either way.themselves

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The reward for your support

            Ah yes, Andy Burnham...the first human with a face that looks like it was rendered by Pixar.

        3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: The reward for your support

          Lots of countries have ID cards and aren't totalitarian disasters. The problem isn't with the card themselves but how they're used, especially when you're required to use them.

    3. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

      Re: The reward for your support

      Tory or Labour, it doesn't matter.

      I can still clearly remember Labour introducing the draconian RIPA Part 2 and the Tories criticizing it as Orwellian. As soon as the Tories got into power they introduced EXACTLY the same legislation and got it passed.

    4. Trigun

      Re: The reward for your support

      That last part made you sound pretty bad. We're trying to push past judging people on the colour of their skin, but clearly we have a way to go. Just dump the race stiring and racism please.

      The rest of what you said: Some truth there, although if you put Labour in charge you will get something quite similar with regards outcome, just via a different route.

      Here's the truth as I see it:

      No matter the skin colour, no matter the party: With a some exceptions, our politicians don't have the populace's best interest at heart because they pursue their fecking ideologies FIRST and what's good for the populace a distant second.

  4. xyz Silver badge

    Suppose it's time for me...

    To burka up

    1. ParlezVousFranglais

      Re: Suppose it's time for me...

      In Scanner Darkly Philip K Dick had the concept of a scramble suit

      Interestingly there are already a few attempts :)

      https://www.businessinsider.com/clothes-accessories-that-outsmart-facial-recognition-tech-2019-10?r=US&IR=T#a-lens-shaped-mask-makes-its-user-undetectable-to-facial-recognition-algorithms-while-still-allowing-humans-to-read-facial-expressions-and-identity-1

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Suppose it's time for me...

        Various attempts along these lines show up on Hackaday periodically. It's a good place to search / keep an eye on if you're interested in the idea, since it's an interesting area for hackers and the bar to entry is low – there are open-source facial-recognition systems to test against, besides the ones that come with certain popular operating systems.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Suppose it's time for me...

        Yes, plenty of solutions exist...especially to combat IR cameras...I think an early attempt was called the "Justice Cap".

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHDc-xW613k

    2. TimMaher Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Suppose it's time for me...

      Should’ve posted that as AC. Then you could have had a Fawkes mask.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Suppose it's time for me...

        No he can't that's my mask.

    3. TheMaskedMan Silver badge

      Re: Suppose it's time for me...

      "To burka up"

      Isn't there some t-shirt design that really confuses these things? I'm sure I read something about that not too long ago. If there isn't, there needs to be - and not just on tshirts please - some of us like shirts with pockets at can fill with random things

  5. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge
    FAIL

    "Success" at the Coronation

    The sort of "success" where they arrest women's safety volunteers distributing rape alarms to vulnerable women, at night, whilst wearing high-vis jackets stating that they are working in association with the Met, arrest a bunch of would-be protesters for thought-crime, and reportedly a royal "super-fan," causing them to miss the whole charade?

    Bang-up job there, Met, you've definitely sorted yourselves out, and adding more surveillance tech will definitely turn you into a well-functioning and non-corrupt force.

    Meh.

    1. DJO Silver badge

      Re: "Success" at the Coronation

      The Met are not representative of policing in the UK. There are no depths of nastiness the Met will not plumb, the other forces are comparatively just "a bit unpleasant".

      The Met needs root and branch reform and far better accountability but that'll never happen.

      1. localzuk Silver badge

        Re: "Success" at the Coronation

        In my experience? The Met are on the more gentle end of policing. Thames Valley Police? They'd be cracking skulls at every opportunity if they could.

        1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
          Trollface

          Re: "Success" at the Coronation

          >Thames Valley Police? They'd be cracking skulls at every opportunity if they could

          That's because Thames Valley Police officers are wannabe Met... a lot of the appllicants the Met reject, for whatever reason, wind up in TVP.

          Fact is you get "good" officers and "bad" officers whichever force you look at. Some forces are, insttituionally, bad apples, some attract the worse end of the scale officers, some are viewed as stepping stones to other forces and as places to get a reputation... the reasons behind bad policing are as many and varied as the ways to actually be bad at policing. It is, IMHO, not an easy nut to crack (unlike protesters skulls with an Asp but I digress) - shouting at the organization "You Will Change!" will just make people in the organisation say "Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" and cross their fingers behind their backs.

          1. DJO Silver badge

            Re: "Success" at the Coronation

            I love it when people say "it's just one bad apple" as if to say that apart from that scallywag everything is just fine.

            The actual phrase is "one bad apple spoils the bunch" which means once you have one person out of control, the entire institution is out of control. If it wasn't the "good apples" would have already reported the single "bad apple" but that seldom happens. Any officer who ignores bad behaviour from a fellow officer is just as bad.

            On my few encounters with TVP I must concur, in nastiness they are pretty close to the Met.

      2. MarsAttax

        Re: "Success" at the Coronation

        Not that forces like WMP are much better, but they get away with blaming underfunding for turning away victims. Doesn't stop corruption though, a PC who was plastered all over the news for assaulting a woman on camera was allowed to resign comfortably and got to change jobs without needing to inform anyone. Big shock to all the women who worked with him when that leaked.

  6. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Gimp

    "the fight against crime and terrorism"

    No, it's the fight against anyone with a free and critical mind.

    Can't have some peon rocking the gravy train, now can we ?

    1984 ? Poor Orwell didn't have a clue. We're going to end up chipped and drugged with sheep-enhancing drugs for our own safety, of course.

    That way we'll all vote for the next Boris Johnson without a flicker of resistance.

    Dystopian future ? We're paving the way right now.

    1. 43300 Silver badge

      Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

      Coronabollox was the trial run to see how easy it was to get large numbers of people to do and believe ridiculous things, and to turn on anyone who doesn't follow the flock. It proved that it's very easy indeed and if the sheep are told to hide behind the sofa as much as possible and to dutifully wear their face nappy and follow the arrows on the floor if they have to go out into the big fearsome wild world, then most of them will do so. Likewise if told to get repeated injections of an experimental drug which doesn't do any of the things it was initially claimed to do.

      1. DJO Silver badge

        Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

        Yes, lots of people like you flocked to the ludicrous conspiracy theories - those people are the real "sheep".

        There have been to date around 7 million C19 deaths worldwide, many of them were gullible sheep who refused to take the appropriate precautions such as masks and vaccines and just being careful and they paid for that stupidity with their lives.

        1. TheMaskedMan Silver badge

          Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

          "There have been to date around 7 million C19 deaths worldwide, many of them were gullible sheep who refused to take the appropriate precautions"

          Indeed, but they're no real loss. What really pisses me off is that they're happy to get infected and then pass it on to someone else who then gets seriously ill / dies.

          Sure, for most people it's not fatal. But it is for many - why wouldn't you take any possible measures to prevent someone else from dying? Stupid and selfish in equal measure.

          1. 43300 Silver badge

            Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

            "precautions" which don't work? Are you seriously credulous enough to believe that a loose-fitting cheap face nappy and standing on spots on the floor is going to have a major impact on an airborne virus which spreads mostly as aerosols? There's no credible evidence that any of these things make any difference at all - as indeed was the accepted wisdom before 2020.

            On it's own, it's very rarely fatal. As with flu, most of those who die 'with' it are over the average live expectancy and with multiple comorbidities. People who would likely die from anything worse than a mild respiratory infection.

            And what the Covidians are also keen to ignore is the very real harm which has resulted from the paranoid and useless "safety" measures. The so-called Cost of Living Crisis is actually largely the result of inflation caused by all the money printing and suppressed consumer demand, followed by the inevitable increased demand. Kids who will never really catch up on lost education in many cases, mental illneseses across all ages form being largely isolated for long periods, and so on.

            1. Cav Bronze badge

              Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

              "As with flu, most of those who die 'with' it are over the average live expectancy and with multiple comorbidities. People who would likely die from anything worse than a mild respiratory infection." Absolute nonsense. If what you say were true then there would be no excess deaths and those people you mention would have died of the regular cold and flue seasons every year. Covid saw a surge in respiratory deaths, far above the usual numbers. That's a simple fact.

              "Are you seriously credulous enough to believe that a loose-fitting cheap face nappy and standing on spots on the floor is going to have a major impact on an airborne virus which spreads mostly as aerosols? There's no credible evidence that any of these things make any difference at all - as indeed was the accepted wisdom before 2020." Are you seriously so ignorant as to not know why masks are worn? More nonsense. Why do surgeons wear such masks? Is it your contention that medics the world over are wasting time and money by wearing these masks? The point isn't to stop the wearer from breathing in virus but to stop the infected from spreading their germs in saliva and mucus. Again, precisely the reason that surgeons and dentists wear such masks. Surgeons wear masks so that they don't infect exposed tissue with their respiratory secretions not to avoid infection from the patient. They also wash their hands for the same reason. Exhaled secretions are full of pathogens.

              "standing on spots on the floor". More ignorance. Initial studies at the time showed that exhaled particles fell to the floor within 6 feet unless expelled by talking, coughing or sneezing. As more evidence accumulated there were calls for the distance to increase or decrease, depending upon the latest information.

        2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

          There have been to date around 7 million C19 deaths worldwide, many of them were gullible sheep who refused to take the appropriate precautions such as masks and vaccines and just being careful and they paid for that stupidity with their lives.

          Nope. There have been around 7 million deaths of people with covid, not from covid. This is a subtle but important difference. As is the actual IFR. There have also been many deaths not from covid, but due to lockdowns. There have also been deaths due to the vaccines healthy people were given who were at very low risk of death by covid. There were billions in profits from pushing vaccines, flogging ineffective masks and apps that are now being modified for general surveillance.

          There have also been campaigners and politicians using the slogan 'My Body, My Choice', normally wrt women's rights, especially reproductive rights. Politicians like Biden are very much 'pro-choice', except when it comes to vaccine mandates. Then it's 'Your Body, Our Choice'. Pregnant women must be given an experimental vaccine that had never been tested on pregnant women, or lose their jobs and other rights. It later transpired that people who were fired for refusing government orders were fired illegally.

          But the good news is that the crackpot's crackdowns have provided a simple way to defeat facial recognition. Just wear a mask. Criminals have known this for centuries, but now they can say they're simply following orders to reduce the risk of covid or other memes.

          1. DJO Silver badge

            Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

            And lots of deaths which were due to C19 being reported as flu or pneumonia so that metric will roughly balance out though given that many governments wanted to downplay the problem the under-reporting is probably greater than the over-reporting.

            mRNA vaccines have been subject to the most rigorous testing regime a new type of drug could have, we were very lucky that C19 came at a time where a whole new technique of vaccine production was ready to be employed.

            As for deaths due to the vaccine, possibly a handful due to some unexpected allergy but that is true of all drugs - you administer something to billions of people then it's guaranteed a handful of people will have adverse reactions. But the vaccine has saved billions of people from contracting C19 or in those that still caught it they experienced far milder symptoms then unvaccinated patients.

            The "crackpots" are the fools who still cling to easily disproved rubbish like "masks don't work" when they clearly do prevent the spread of droplets. The reason to wear masks is not so much to protect the wearer but to protect everybody else from the wearer, but selfish jerks think if it's not going to help me, why should I wear one.

            The military insist on members of the armed forces being vaccinated for multiple illnesses and nobody objects to that so why is it suddenly a problem?

            1. 43300 Silver badge

              Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

              A large number of deaths were 'with Covid', which was intentionally a mmeaninglessly wide category and often based on the meaningless tests - e.g. people with no symptoms of Covid could be in the stats because they 'tested positive', or people who were barely ill, recovered, and then died in a car crash.

              The 'of COvid' data is entirely meaningless and they could be and were massively gamed to increase the sense of fear (this was a UK government strategy) - look at the excess deaths as that's about the only measure which can't easily be gamed. They show nothing worse than a bad flu season, which always crop up every few years.

              1. DJO Silver badge

                Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

                The annual mortality attributed to C19 during the epidemic far greater than the average yearly flu mortality.

                The UK flu mortality rates seem to vary by who you ask but there are the ONS figures:

                https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/influenzadeathsintheukbetween2012to2022

                The National Institutes of Health think the figure is higher than due to misreporting,maybe 15,000 to 25,000

                https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676118/

                The worst of C19 lasted 3 years over which period in the UK there were 24,603,076 reported infections and 225,324 deaths - annually significantly more than the worst flu season since effective treatments existed.

                When you look at excess deaths which do show an increase over the C19 period there's a secondary effect to consider, as many people did take precautions like distancing, masks and hand washing the spread of other diseases was significantly reduced - I for one didn't get a single cold or flu over the entire period.

              2. Cav Bronze badge

                Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

                You are deluded. "Yes, let's just keep everyone at home and cripple supply chains and the economy" said no government ever.

                "They show nothing worse than a bad flu season, which always crop up every few years." liar. If you have to lie to support your argument then it is an invalid one.

            2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

              Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

              And lots of deaths which were due to C19 being reported as flu or pneumonia so that metric will roughly balance out though given that many governments wanted to downplay the problem the under-reporting is probably greater than the over-reporting.

              Nope, those would have been recorded as covid. Those may even have been accurate given pneumonia can have a very wide range of causes. Governments certainly didn't want to downplay the problem, and neither did the media, eg the ever useless Bbc with it's live killcounter.

              mRNA vaccines have been subject to the most rigorous testing regime a new type of drug could have, we were very lucky that C19 came at a time where a whole new technique of vaccine production was ready to be employed.

              Except that's pretty much a complete inversion of reality. Previously mRNA had been considered too risky, then with the panicdemic there was intense lobbying to short-cut testing, issue 'emergency use' permissions and circumvent pretty much all normal testing and trial procedures. Then force mass vaccinations, despite not knowing what the effects would be. Especially when sales campaigns were extended to people who weren't vulnerable in the first place. This is also why I mentioned pregnant women because those trials were never done. From memory, something like 40 mothers were enrolled, but the trial ended because it wouldn't meet criteria with such a small sample pool.

              The "crackpots" are the fools who still cling to easily disproved rubbish like "masks don't work" when they clearly do prevent the spread of droplets.

              Not the cheap paper masks people were conned into buying. Very profitable though, and why they had.. problems was often demonstrated by politicians who didn't think they needed to cover their nostrils..

              The military insist on members of the armed forces being vaccinated for multiple illnesses and nobody objects to that so why is it suddenly a problem?

              Because soldiers aren't supposed to be guinea pigs? And soldiers being told they'd be fired if they refused to obey what turned out to be an unlawful order isn't a good thing when armed forces are facing huge recruitment and retention problems. Plus there's been a number of soldiers and recruits who suddenly developed heart problems following vaccinations. For recruits, those may have been undiagnosed issues. Generally medicine works on the 'First do no harm' principle though. Not 'lets give millions of people an experimental vaccine and see what happens'. The modern medical policy made drug dealers and salesmen like Fauci an awful lot of money though.

              Now.. Take your Soma, and be well, citizen!

            3. Fading

              Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

              Masks do not stop airborne infections (especially cloth masks). Covid-19 had an airborne infection vector https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1030 and we have known this for two years.

              1. LogicGate Silver badge

                Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

                Tell that to health care workers who managed to remain covid free despite handling covid patients for the full length of the pandemic. How? By wearing mask and face shield.

                off cource it is all a numbers game. Nothing is 100% proof, but proper masks and mask wearing routines did a fcking good job at protecting people and the asshats saying otherwise are, surprise surprise, the same people that routinely peddles all sorts of other nonsense on these forums...

              2. Roj Blake Silver badge

                Re: "Masks do not stop airborne infections"

                So why do you think surgeons wear masks?

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: So why do you think surgeons wear masks?

                  Sounds like a starting line to a bad joke, like, I don't know: to show you they're serious? To hide their grin?

                2. Fading

                  Re: "Masks do not stop airborne infections"

                  To stop bacterial infections spreading.

              3. Cav Bronze badge

                Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

                Your article doesn't support the argument you are making. Yes, Covid is airborne. So what? Cloth masks cannot stop you breathing in virus, which easily pass through the weave of the material. But that was never their purpose. The purpose was to stop the infected spraying virus filled mucus and saliva everywhere and that they certainly do achieve. It's the whole reason that dentists and surgeons wear them.

            4. jmch Silver badge

              Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

              "mRNA vaccines have been subject to the most rigorous testing regime a new type of drug could have"

              Pull the other one! Traditional vaccines and other drugs have development / testing / approval cycles that last many years, sometimes decades. Granted some preliminary work around mRNA vaccines had been done generally, but the specific covid vaccines were developed, tested and approved in about 9 months. "Rigorous" is certainly not the term I would use, least of all because it's impossible to test for long-term effectiveness or for long-term side-effects if your testing duration is 3 months. Imagine the surprise that the rigorously tested vaccines turned out to have an effectiveness of about 6 months!!! ANd we won't really know about the real long-term safety for another few years.

              1. Cav Bronze badge

                Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

                We know the safety of mRNA because we know how it works and the internal cellular level. There is no way that mRNA vaccines can cause mass long-term problems. The only way they could cause problems is if the protein that they encode is sufficiently similar to a one of a patient's own proteins. That would trigger an autoimmune response. However, if the patient's protein is so similar to the viral spike protein then an actual covid infection would cause the same response. It's for this reason that the impacts of covid were felt throughout patient's bodies.

                And the length of time it takes traditional vaccines to be developed is irrelevant. This is a new method of attacking a pathogen. Comparison with earlier methods is meaningless.

                Any harm also has to be compared to that which would result from not vaccinating.

          2. localzuk Silver badge

            Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

            The UK had the highest rate of death since 1918 in 2020. Are you saying those extra deaths weren't from Covid?

          3. This post has been deleted by its author

          4. Cav Bronze badge

            Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

            Another ludicrous, truly ignorant comment.

            "There have also been deaths due to the vaccines healthy people were given who were at very low risk of death by covid." Yes, in truly minuscule numbers.

            "flogging ineffective masks". Only the truly ignorant would argue so. Masks prevent an infected individual from spraying virus filled mucus everywhere. They are not supposed to stop you inhaling virus which would require biohazard level masks.

            "'pro-choice', except when it comes to vaccine mandates"

            You can't seriously be this obtuse? Pro-choice about things that do not affect anyone else, yes. Pro-choice about the foolish choosing to spread a pathogen during a pandemic, no. Another ignorant argument.

            "There have been around 7 million deaths of people with covid, not from covid. This is a subtle but important difference". If your argument were anywhere near remotely true then we wouldn't have had a surge in deaths or ITUs filled with Covid patients. People who would otherwise have lived long and happy lives, with whatever medical condition you ascribe their deaths to, were it not for Covid instead died.

          5. Cav Bronze badge

            Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

            And you deliberately, no one could be so ignorant as to not know it, hide the fact that one of the main purposes of the vaccine and other measures, in addition to saving lives, was to reduce demand on hospital services. They were already stretched to breaking point by the number of covid cases. Can you seriously not see how many more cases would have needed hospital care without vaccines, masks and lockdowns? And who would have treated all those people demanding beds? It was bad enough when vaccines were available. Can you not imagine the numbers of staff off sick if counter measures hadn't been employed?

            Your arguments, and those of your deluded ilk, are based in conspiracy fear, ignorance and the absence of rational thought.

        3. jmch Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

          "There have been to date around 7 million C19 deaths worldwide, many of them were gullible sheep who refused to take the appropriate precautions"

          No, the vast majority of them were frail old people and / or with comorbidities, a lot of whom would have died if exposed to Influenza*. In fact, in many places like Italy and Spain (possibly many more countries but I don't know the details there), the fatalities were of gullible sheep who followed exactly the precautions ordered by clueless** health authorities such as to confine old people to care homes which basically became slaughterhouses.

          "refused to take the appropriate precautions such as masks and vaccines"

          Masks are appropriate in a clinical setting, a bit less in closed spaces and making no difference in outside spaces. While having their uses, the incorrect wearing by pretty much everyone (face touching and mask adjusting, repeated use, incorrect positioning) combined with the overconfidence in their effect vastly reduced their effectiveness. Regular handwashing and airing of closed spaces are much more effective. Vaccines were not available for a whole year into the pandemic. In theory they could create herd immunity by stopping vaccinated people from becoming carriers. In practice they worked well to reduce the seriousness of symptoms of vaccinated people who caught it BUT didn't stop vaccinated people from spreading covid, and 'wore out' after 6 months. For healthy adults below 50 there is little reason to get it, and for children even less so. For anyone older, or with existing health problems it's probably a good idea. Just like with the flu shot, give it to those who need it and don't try to force it on anyone else.

          *The first strain of Covid was deadlier than flu but newer strains are less and less deadly. Long-term Covid will just be a 'normal' endemic disease just like the flu.

          ** Not wanting to point fingers or involve any conspiracies, it was literally something new that they didn't know about, and they were working with best-guesstimate available information (a lot of which the Chinese were deliberately hiding)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

        The government HATED lockdown. Their rich donors wanted the people buying the newspapers, and occupying the offices.

        Boris removed mandates prematurely due to pressure, and since then, it's the SHEEP that follow the unsubstantiated conspiracy nutcases, whilst those who can think for themselves ignore Boris and follow the science.

        I once got called a sheep for wearing a mask...... in a supermarket where I was the ONLY one wearing one. You paranoid delusionals are so dumb.

        Read this, your life could depend on it: https://www.levernews.com/how-the-koch-network-hijacked-the-war-on-covid/

        1. Peter2 Silver badge

          Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

          I once got called a sheep for wearing a mask...... in a supermarket where I was the ONLY one wearing one. You paranoid delusionals are so dumb.

          If you were wearing an FP3 mask with detachable filter which is changed periodically and sanitised religiously then personally I feel that's quite justified, as that filters the incoming air and so would prevent you breathing in air with covid particles in it and so would prevent you getting anything airborne.

          If you were wearing one of those stupid cotton masks then I feel that it's pointless; they just stop the droplets spreading as far if you had it and coughed. They provide *you* with zero protection against other people. I see people still wearing the things, but I really don't understand why they are bothering. I think they are actually under the impression that it's protecting them against other people.

          1. LogicGate Silver badge

            Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

            The hand sown cotton masks were a measure that protected others a little from your spittle, while they protected FFP2 masks from being used up by others than healthcare workers that REALLY needed them.

            Disposable FFP2 masks could be used with some success for a longer period of time as long as they were aired / dried and exposed to sunlight inbetween. Covid would die after 4-5 hours.

            Disposable "cotton" surgical masks were on par with the hand sewn masks, and should imho have been forbidden the moment FFP2 caught up with demand.

            Crasily I had to go to the emergency room during Covid, and was told to remove my FFP2 and replace it with a hospital provided surgical mask. I was worried for half a week afterwards, and not because of the stitches.

          2. Cav Bronze badge

            Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

            "They provide *you* with zero protection against other people."

            They were never supposed to...

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

        " scathing report released in October by British lawmakers — many from Prime Minister Johnson’s own party — found that the country’s failure to respond to the virus quickly and aggressively was “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced” and led to “many thousands of deaths which could have been avoided.”"

        https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/12/uks-herd-immunity-covid-strategy-a-public-health-failure-inquiry.html

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

          Someone posts a factual comment, and someone downvotes it.

          Facts don't care about your feelings.

          Sucks to be you. Must be a Trump supporter.

        2. 43300 Silver badge

          Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

          No doubt you will be able to explain, then, why if you look across many countries (and US states) there is no correlation between measures taken and the outcome?

          Look at the UK stats - numbers had already peaked and were heading downwards before thye did anything in March 2020. There's no evidence that the measures make any real impact - the rise and fall of the waves take pretty much the same trajectory whatever. Sure, by timing the restricitons carefully (as some poltiicians probably did) it may sometimes be possible to make them coincide, but if it was acutually the restrictions doing anything then that would be seen across the board, which it isn't.

          Incidentally, why do Covidians have this tendency to accuse anyone who doesn't believe the same fairy stories as them of being "Trump supporters" or similar? Is it simply that early on Trump made a few unusually sensible comments about this, and therefore all those who hate him feel that they have to take the opposing view?

          If you seriously believe that any UK government-commissioned report is going to conclude that they shouldn't have taken the measures at all, then you don't have much understanding of politicians! ALl of these type of 'should have' reports are based on make-believe modelling which bears not relationship to relaity. If they were right then Sweden should have had some of the worst excess mortality as it had the lowest restriction level in Europe - it didn't, far from it: its average for the period 2020-22 was actually the lowest in Europe.

          1. Cav Bronze badge

            Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

            "numbers had already peaked and were heading downwards before thye did anything in March 2020". Liar

      4. Cav Bronze badge

        Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

        Is this your entry for the most completely ignorant, know-nothing comment of the decade award?

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: "the fight against crime and terrorism"

      Drugging is unnecessary. It's quite feasible to control a majority of the population with ordinary rhetorical devices, and the infrastructure for deploying those is orders of magnitude better in pretty much every respect than at any other time in history.

      It's not Nineteen Eighty-Four. It's Brave New World, where most people subscribe to their own oppression. Enjoy Your Symptom, as Žižek put it.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ....But GDPR Was Always A Joke.....

    https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/10/ipco_report_2020/

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/13/gchq-data-collection-violated-human-rights-strasbourg-court-rules

    https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/23/anonymised-data-never-be-anonymous-enough-study-finds

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/03/google-deepmind-16m-patient-royal-free-deal-data-protection-act

    .....and this latest development from the sock puppets in Westmister is news?? Really???

  8. Howard Sway Silver badge

    UK police have also collaborated with "private companies using facial recognition surveillance"

    Of course they have, so much easier for a Tory to convince themselves that an increasingly authoritarian state is a good thing if someone's making bucketloads of money out of it as well. Even better if you get to put your own nose in the trough. If you're one of the 85% of innocent unfortunates who get wrongly identified just suck it up. At least we got 15% of people who were actually guilty. Probably.

    1. hoola Silver badge

      Re: UK police have also collaborated with "private companies using facial recognition surveillance"

      Given that the most likely company is ClearView Tory involvement is probably light.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Obey, Consume.

    Xi has sent directives to subordinate nations that specific PRC policies must be enforced by 2025, and 2030 for the "Secure Living Arrangement Verifying Everyone" program (SLAVE for short) or be corrected. You don't want to be corrected.

    1. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

      Re: Obey, Consume.

      Ah, you've seen the movie "They Live" (1989) too!

  10. xyz123 Silver badge

    Just a matter of time before people (legally) start to don facemasks to look like wanted criminals.

    Not illegal, but will constantly set off facial recog systems in dozens of towns and cities, wasting police time.

    Could even use as a distraction. Four teenagers with "wanted criminal" masks on wander round the shopping center, distracting the police whilst an ACTUAL robbery is performed miles away....

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Let's hope it's legal. During COVID mask mandates in New York, Kevin Underhill noted that wearing masks in public is actually illegal in the state of New York. That's under the "loitering" statute, which is one of those catch-all laws beloved of the police when they're inclined to put the boot in.

  11. s. pam Silver badge
    WTF?

    Londonium Uber Data Lords can ignore it...

    the little dictator Khanaroid who thinks he is the Skynet overlord of The Big Smoke clearly hasn't received the news of the new guidelines as he's installing surveilance cameras everywhere inside the M25. this new surveilance zone will swiftly squelched by the BamBam Klub and others as they take it down.

    1. Imp2

      Re: Londonium Uber Data Lords can ignore it...

      You mean the cameras introduced by Boris Johnson and the extension of the zone insisted on by the conservative government in return for funding for the tube during the pandemic.

  12. bofh1961

    What's the problem?

    Most of the population is already quite happy to carry a listening device around with them all the time. A device they have little or no control over. The state merely wants to have as much of a surveillance capability as Google already does. Big business and the state already have far more control over us than most of realise and technology will only exacerbate that. So-called democracy is just window dressing for state control, as it always has been.

    1. IGotOut Silver badge

      Re: What's the problem?

      I can turn my phone off. Can't turn my face off

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: What's the problem?

        Or leave your phone at home, which again is tough to do with your face. Or "forget" your phone on a train. Or put it in a Faraday cage.

        OK, you can put your head in a Faraday cage, but 1) that's not terrible effective, and 2) it'll look kind of stupid.

        (On the other hand, "Tin Foil Facemask" is a good band name.)

  13. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge
    Facepalm

    "We have asked the newly formed Department for Science Innovation and Technology (formerly the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) for comment. ®"

    So, Mr Spokesman,

    That's COACH Spokesman!

    Yes, quite. COACH Spokesman, can you explain how this new law will protect people from being misidentified?

    Yeah, uh, you see, uhh, the thing is, the cameras will, uhh, GO TEAM!"

    WHY are they using a sporting and cultural group to manage this sort of thing? Would it not be better to assign privacy advocates and geeks to the role?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      DCMS included Digital

      The old DCMS was the department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The cameras are digital, so it got lumped there.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Big Data" And Very Short Memories.....Sigh!!!!

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/11/south-wales-police-lose-landmark-facial-recognition-case

    Ha! Back in 2020 - regarding the Welsh Police - "the court of appeal ruled that its use breached privacy rights and broke equalities law".

    Is this not relevant in 2023?........or is the public memory for egregious breaches of the law by the police limited to five minutes?

  15. Secon

    A few points (and corrections)

    Whilst the general thrust of your article is (boradly) correct, there are a few things that need to be better eplxained and considered - not because they make the Governments position more tenable or acceptable, but because their complexity in operation arguyably make it worse.

    GDPR/UK GDPR has zero relevance to Police use of Facial Recognition (by whatever means), or indeed to processing of personal data for a Law Enforcement purpose at all.

    The legislation that covers these practices is the Data Protection Act 2018 Part 3 - the UK's implementation of the EU Law Enforcement Directive (2016/679) [LED]

    Chris Pounder is normally careful to make clear the distinction (whic h he understands), but many commentators on DP legislation in the UK fail to recognise the difference and thus we can spin off into discussions irrelevant to the matter at hand.

    The plans for simplification/emasculation of the regulator are indeed a risk to fundamental rights and freedoms of data subjects. They also undemrine effective controls expected by the EU for UK Data Protection and signed up to by the UK in the TCA (the Brexit Deal). These are important because the UK's EU Adequacy for both GDPR and the LED hinge on the legal commitments given by the uK Government in those late minutes before the clock struck 11pm on 31st December 2020.

    The UK's Data Proteciton legislation wrt Law Enforcement processing changed radically at that point, making many of the systems and services used by UK Police, Courts, Prisons and other bodies illegal with immediate effect; from 11pm Dec 31st 2020 UK law prevented routine transfers of LE Personal data to anywhere outside of the UK, and htough the CJS community, UK Gov and the ICO have ignored that, the chnge was in legal terms both massive in effect and consequence.

    There are however other changes planned in the DPDI No2 bill that have more direct impacts onthe public and which the Reg and others should be looking at much more closely.

    During the TCA negotiations and when the UK's adequacy was being discussed, there was a challenge levelled by the EU to the UK on the basis that there is no clear dividing line between certain National Intelligence bodies and Policing - and that from time to time each appeared to act as the other.

    For a European Community with (sometimes not very distant) memories of secret policing this is a serious red flag, but the UK gave assurances in this respect.

    The DPDI No.2 bill however contains a proposal to allow a Secretary of State to formalise circumstances where the Police may act as an Intelligence Agency, or vice versa (a "Designation Notice" in the new Section 82A) - writing into a legal framework the specific concern raised by the EDPB, civil liberties groups and other observers

    In addition it introduces a whole raft of new exemptions which the Secretary of State can apply into Part 3 (under the new Section 78A). These have really very serious implications for public rights and accountability of Government.

    We should be deeply concerned by all of these also.

  16. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

    V for Vendetta

    Watch this movie to see the future of the British surveillance state. Britain is becoming an Orwellian nightmare with politicians using CP and terrorism to introduce all kinds of draconian legislation.

    The funny thing is there's no one in the UK that seems to be able or willing push back. The British have been brainwashed into a "the government knows best" kind of thinking.

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: V for Vendetta

      The British have been brainwashed into a "the government knows best" kind of thinking.

      Well, we're certainly got ourselves into the state of affairs where a government which has a year or so to remain in power before there has to be a general election is doing whatever it can to grab headlines, cement its waning power over us and generally try anything in a desperate attempt to a) keep the Tory Party together and b) have some chance of winning the next general election.

      The Tories claim to the 'the Party of Law and Order' (yes, I know the Home Secretary has just been revealed as having broken the speed limit and got 3 points on her licence, and that the current PM was found to have broken Covid regulations and fined by the Police...) but in general they try to appear as being supportive of the Police (yes, I know they got rid of 20,000 officers a few years ago and are now trying to get them back).

      The British have rarely actually believed that 'the Government knowns best' (Thatcher railing against 'the nanny state' and all that), just that there is very little we plebs can actually do about them, so it is usually best to just keep your head down and carry on* and try to ignore them as much as possible. (Coincidentally, keeping your head down may help to defeat facial recognition technology.) As for anyone actually standing up to the government and opposing this legislation, we often leave that to the House of Lords (God help us).

      *That sounds like a good slogan for a mug or Tee-Shirt, maybe I should copyright it?

      1. 43300 Silver badge

        Re: V for Vendetta

        "The British have rarely actually believed that 'the Government knowns best' (Thatcher railing against 'the nanny state' and all that), just that there is very little we plebs can actually do about them, so it is usually best to just keep your head down and carry on* and try to ignore them as much as possible."

        And there's also the problem that the other lot (i.e. the other half of the UK branch of the globalist uniparty) won't be better, and few people actually believe what they promise. Whichever lot isn't in power will rant on about how they are going to improve the NHS and whatever else they think will play well with the public. Then if they are elected, bugger-all will change. A lot of people just don't see the point of participating in this performance now - I certainly don't: I've never voted Tory, but there is absolutely no way I would vote for Starmer's lot either now after the way they've carried on over the past few years so for the first time in many years I probably won't bother to vote at all in the next election.

        1. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

          Re: V for Vendetta

          The very least you Brits could do is to organize mass protests against RIPA Part 2 and the Online Safety Bill. I've seen none of that which leads me to believe most Brits are fine with or apathetic towards it.

          1. 43300 Silver badge

            Re: V for Vendetta

            The govenrment always uses the 'think of the children' line - which works with a lot of the population although it's clearly not about that at all (and how are they going to stop people engaged in criminal activity from using encrption anyway? By definition, such people aren't going to follow laws!).

            I don't necessarily think most are 'fine' with it (they know little about it, too little to form much of an opinion), but you are right that there is a lot of apathy - and it's about the whole political system, not just particualr issues. Labour will probably win the next election simply because enough people in the relatively few seats which will decide the outcome are sick of the Tories, not because Labour or its lacklustre leader are regarded with much enthusiasm by most.

          2. Eclectic Man Silver badge
            Unhappy

            Re: V for Vendetta

            StrangerHereMyself: "The very least you Brits could do is to organize mass protests against RIPA Part 2 and the Online Safety Bill."

            Haven't you heard? Protesting is now illegal, or at least anything done publicly that inconveniences anyone, such as literally 'walking too slowly'* is now illegal under the latest Public Order Act.

            Of course I do approve of people being able to protest (so long as I am not inconvenienced too much), after all that worked really well in Hitler's Germany and is fine in Putin's Russia, where protests are actively encouraged and listened to with all the respect, solemnity and diligence one expects of a totalitarian regime.**

            * https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-acts-to-stop-highly-disruptive-slow-walking-tactics#:~:text=Under%20new%20legislation%20introduced%20today,of%20the%20hard%2Dworking%20public.

            ** I have been 'informed' that Russia is a democracy, not a totalitarian regime, that Mr Putin was democratically elected several times, and that the absence of protestors indicates a very high level of support for Mr Putin and his government, and I wish to add that I make this statement entirely of my own free will and am under no coercion at all.

            1. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

              Re: V for Vendetta

              Considering that the UK is becoming an Orwellian authoritarian poster child, no I'm not surprised.

              I *am* surprised that nations like the UK still call themselves democracies and that its citizens still believe this fairy tale. For all its faults, the United States will still be a democracy long after most European nations have succumbed to authoritarianism.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: V for Vendetta

      Watch this movie

      Ugh, must I?

      I suppose I could read the comic again, though honestly I don't think it's among Moore's best work. Competent, but not particularly subtle or provocative for anyone who's been paying attention.

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