Re: Old News ...... @Titus
"On your other point personally I would trade a degree of privacy to stop at least some of the bad things."
Why should they ask to take part of what they already have all of? Do you not get why most people find that somewhat annoying?
"Impassioned rants on Internet forums may have no effect whatsoever."
That's "will have no effect whatsoever."
On a personal basis only directly contacting the relevant representative will begin to make a difference. Judging their response and deciding will you support them at the next election. Letters to national or regional newspapers when they write the (rare) articles covering this subject. Practically switching ISPs and service providers to non US suppliers and moving to end to end encryption and not even considering going to "T'Cloud."
"Civil Servants want to go to work (and keep their job) then go home (as early as possible) and I can't quite see how the manic spy on and arrest everybody fits."
Funny how you tend to miss the part about senior civil servants out, isn't it?
I always mean the Oxbridge, fast track PPE graduates (except in the case of the former head of GCHQ who did particle physics) who did or do head up MI5/MI6/GCHQ and whatever SOCA is called now. Not the field agents or desk analysts, the types who decide "policy" and who always somehow get promoted (even when the last project was rubbish). People with no technical background, but a desire to preside over an ever larger fiefdom, ever higher salary and ever larger pension.
"I tend to think that "nations don't have friends or enemies...nations only have interests?"......."
True. But really this debate has nothing to do with spying on other governments it's about spying on populations (their own and others) who present no threat to anyone.
They are being spied on because during some moments of fear (12 and 8 years ago respectively now) weak minded politicians gave into their BS about "Let us do this and we will catch them before another outrage occurs." Despite the fact that problem is effectively impossible to solve.
But really, it's because they can. The tech exists and they wanted to use it.
I'll just repeat the rough numbers in the UK. 2000 "Jihadist" suspects (out of a population of c66m) . 57 dead in 7/7/05 (I cannot find a cost figure for the collateral damage, which would be interesting) and £500m/yr to the ISPs to run the visible part of the spying system.
That's £8.77m a life saved or £250k a suspect to watch. 50-70 is also about the number of deaths from a)Botched DIY in the UK (ROSPA) or farmyard accidents (ROSPA).
And BTW suspects in the 7/7/05 and Lee Rigby events were already known to the SS before they committed their offenses, which are all criminal and arrestable.
On a personal note Titus I'm curious why do you bother posting? As a true cynic you seem to feel all of this is "Just what spy agencies do." So no real point in making a fuss. And as a true cynic you don't think anything can or will changes, so just keep your head down because, afters all, you have nothing to hide.
Or am I missing some part of your motivation?