Well, it's official - the UK government now has the 'most extreme spying powers ever seen':

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...-a7445276.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38134560

Tories hate the internet.

Absolutely pointless intrusion in peoples lives. Disgusting.

So very easy to get around. It will only catch the innocent and incompetent.

And those who the government feel are a "nuisance" no doubt (anyone who goes against them for example).

and ano thread was needed to tell us the inevitable.

Will this make the main news headlines..........i doubt it very much .

Labour voted for it too.

Yet you still came in here to read it! What percentage of your 48k posts are just complaining about other people making threads? Its all you ever seem to do. Next time we would all appreciate it if you either just contributed to the thread or just ignore it and move on. Thanks.

One question needs to be asked - how did it come to this?

Over-arching fear of terrorism was undoubtedly a strong selling point. Keeping the public ignorant about what online and data snooping exactly entails was also a feature.

You are absolutely correct.

This. Any terrorist or criminal organisation worth its salt will have been circumventing these measures for years. Not even I will accuse May of being too stupid to grasp this, ergo this is purely an ideological policy from an authoritarian scumbag.

However, all the 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' twerps should now understand that it is their patriotic duty to circumvent these measures as well. By taking their harmless, inconsequential data out of the equation they will be freeing up more resources to catch the real criminals.


Of course they did. It's the continuation of that other authoritarian scumbag Tony Blair's work.

What they do is distract the public with things like Brexit and Trump and Jo Cox then sneakily put this through the backdoor . Its same with smart technology things like smart meters , smart cities and agenda 21 they never get talked about .

This is a very sad day in our history. This Tory government has undermined the rights of us all and I do not trust them to exercise their new powers either efficiently or honestly. There, that's put me high on their list. Bye!

I don't think it will last.

Unlike other freedom-crushing initiatives this one is very personal and creates the sense of Theresa May herself watching what people are doing in their homes via a virtual CCTV in every room.


Then there is the nature of the storage, ISPs basically are keeping this data in a shoebox with a cat sleeping on top. Hackable like nobodies business.

Who will be the victims of such a hack? MPs of course. And rich 'n famous people.

I'm mixed on this, what if it prevents a large terrorist attack?

Exactly.

A lot of the media are also complicit in this relative blackout on the Snooper's Charter (whether involuntarily or not).

As we read in forums like this or comments underneath news articles, 99% of the public don't understand what it all means.

I do think the public will actually come to understand (and strongly resent) this one because it's so personal.

I've no idea, feel free to calculate it.

I wasn't aware you tracked what I seem to do. If you wish to establish what 'we' would all appreciate start a poll, until then just speak for yourself.

My post was a comment and the last time I checked that's allowed, sorry if it upsets you. Thanks.

Btw I'm not in favour of this bill.

It won't. As I said above, any terrorist organisation worth its salt will already be circumventing these measures as a par for course.

Watching this government grapple with the complexities of the internet is like watching an earthworm grapple with a Rubik's cube - it can't even grasp the enormity of the task before it, let alone make any meaningful attempt to solve it.

One of things that will be done is "predictive crime", where huge amounts of data are analysed for patterns.

Then people can be investigated before they have committed any crime, and punished on the basis that they were going to do so.

Don't forget this has already happened, legislation like this just makes it a much more easy to do.


That's the bit that the public don't understand, how easy it will be to investigate them. The only reason the police don't spend time following random people around is because it's impractical/costly.

Not anymore it isn't.

It wont, in fact rather the reverse. Any serious analysis shows that Bulk Surveillance does not work. Not only that but it takes resources away from investigating genuine risks, so will actually increase the danger.

It is worse than that in the oversight is so weak it will allow Governments to suppress dissent and those who oppose their policies.

There was recently a haul of intelligence which highlighted plans for terrorist acts in Europe and it was not found by listening, but when land ruled by ISIS was captured. That is how intelligence is found. You then use that intelligence to target surveillance and so make us safer.

Nor is it worth looking to Labour - they tried to bring in their own version.

Indeed, and anyone who thinks that this new law is all about terrorism is wrong. Terrorism is just the crowbar that was used to get the Snooper's Charter into law. What it's really about is control, and Labour and Tory governments want ultimate control over the people.

Unfortunately though, by then it may be too late.

You'll be told it will / has and is a marvellous success, but the (my) reality is that it won't (much).

The day we finally became a Big Brother state, how close did Orwell come to predicting the future?
When he wrote 1984 there were no computers or Internet, obviously, and TV was very much in it's infancy, but his concept of a future totalitarian government which could spy on every single citizen has very much become a reality today, and just as in his novel the down trodden herd don't even notice or care, after all Big Brother loves us and only wants what's best for us so what are you afraid of citizen?

The new Tory party motto,

War is peace freedom is slavery ignorance is strength.