Reply to post: Not really thinking things through.

Not really thinking things through.

As one or two commentators have noted, actually the security services pretty much have all the tools they need. So maybe this was more about keeping what they have, rather than getting any more, a trick politicians use a lot, be really radical upfront, and negotiate something more reasonable.

But people, how do you think the security services should behave? If they are totally transparent, then their adversaries will know how they will behave, and circumvent them. If you bind them too closely with legislation and oversight they will never keep up. There is nothing wrong with demanding a warrant to look deeply into someone's life, but in the worlds of serious crime and intelligence, how do you expect the security services to get enough information to request a warrant, if they don't listen in to conversations, be they in the pub, or on the internet. You cannot just rely on informants, who often have their own agendas, and then think about how many people who say they won't give information to the police because it's up to them to investigate.

I'm not sure what exactly you are all afraid of, in a democracy, you can get rid of governments and parties you don't like through the ballot box, you can even form new parties. Funnily enough, policemen, security service personnel, civil servants and armed forces personnel are also citizens, who in my experience are just as committed to democracy as the majority. Should we start to loose our democracy, then you will have something to worry about.

GCHQ, the NSA, and the rest, really do not give a stuff about your private lives, the don't look at your baby photographs, or eMails organising the curry night, such chaff is never seen by a human being, let alone made public. If however you want to organise a terrorist act or serious crime, then they will be interested. Criminals, Terrorists and Foreign spies always try to stay one step ahead, using new methods to evade detection, new internet services, new slang. Do you always want security services to react to events after they have happened, probably not, I'd think you want them to detect them before they happen. So STOP and think how you might do that without being found out by the people you are trying to stop.