Interesting that the Royals have a go at the press for intrusion by the media.

I wonder if 'we're all in this together' and the Royals and politicians are under the same surveillance as everybody else. Especially given that they are in positions of power and there is a very important need for them to be held accountable for their actions.

Better read this quickly, when the snooper's charter becomes law the government will notice you've clicked on this and probably put you on some form of list.

It has been known by the Security Services for a long time that such mass surveillance achieves none of those things.

The FBI and NSA in America had all of the information they needed to prevent the 9/11 attacks. But, because of the mass surveillance the American government were undertaking at the time, the information was completely submerged under the vast amounts of data gathered and was missed.

NSA Whistleblower Tells UK Parliament: "Snooper's Charter" Is Deadly

If you believe these new regulations will achieve any of the things you seem to believe it will, you are very much mistaken.

Yep - The more data you have the more you have to process it into information that someone can make use of. The only use is then to back track after an event and hope to find leads which wouldn't be much use to those killed in a terrorist attack now would it.

When I was at uni we called it the D.I.C.K principle - Data becomes Information which when Collated becomes Knowledge.

The problem is that as the data set gets larger, so do the number of hits, so to does the number of false leads, so to the time wasted chasing such leads.

... and the number of 'normal' people actively looking for privacy using VPNs, Tails, Tor, cash paid phones... and the like increases ever more, generating even more false leads in 'dark web/communication esque areas' and greater noise which then helps cover the actual proper crims who have always been savvy to the surveillance avoidance anyway.

You are talking about identifying a terrorist purely from mass surveillance.

I am talking about following the communications from a already identified terrorist to associates.

According to MI5. Almost all of MI5’s top priority UK counter terror investigations have used intercept capabilities in some form to identify, understand or disrupt plots seeking to harm the UK and its citizens. The ability to access communications data is vital to our ability to protect our national security. Such data has been crucial to MI5 and to the Police in detecting and stopping many terrorist plots over the last decade.

Examples of communications data being used the way I said. Tacking communications from a identified terrorist to associates. Operation OVERT that stopped a plot to bring down multiple airliners. A key part of the evidence which brought the plotters to justice was coded conversations by email retrieved by police following their arrest, between the conspirators and Al Qaeda linked extremists in Pakistan, in which they discussed the preparations for their attacks and the selection of targets. For example the plot to attack the London Stock Exchange, a key part of the evidence that brought the plotters to justice was communications data between the plotters.

Petition now reaches 149,335 signatures

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199

Hate this bill. Think it's hilarious that the only amendment made to it is that MPs are protected from it. Really does take the pee.

Why isn't this headline news in the papers??

This is precisely what the government (and previously Labour) indicated, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of database(s) can tell you this does not work and indeed makes things worse


In which case there is no need to do a warrantless search, or at least a warrant that has gone through an actual court rather than a retired judge see out his last years. Nobody has a problem with surveillance, just bulk surveillance.


Which is not bulk surveillance.



But again this is targeted surveillance, not bulk surveillance.

I'd say he's part of the security services in some way paid to try and calm us down so we don't do anything that makes them have to pay extra overtime to read our emails etc.

The language is very much of 'shop' when talking about security matters and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the relevant acts so i'd say. If he fancies pulling me in I hear Gitmo is warm this time of the year and 3 hots and a cot on the tax payer with free 'hair washing' doesn't sound too bad just remember the cats not got all his teeth and prefers mashed food

The new legislation contains more safeguards and judicial oversight than the legislation it replaces.

The mass "surveillance" that some people find objectionable is communications data retention by service providers. The raw data that enables service providers to answer the question who has this terrorist been in communication with.

But what about the parts of the new rules that require communications providers to have to tell the state about any upgrades and make alterations to them as seen fit by the secretary of state? that along with the legal ability to order ISP's to disable security on demand to ease the spying etc....theres a lot of nasty hidden in the detail.

Does not mean it is sufficient. The legislation does not require that a warrant is sought from a High Court - not only that but there are far too many organisations that can request that information.


What people find objectionable is the way that the government can request this information with only a friendly court to justify that surveillance.

This is the second thread I've seen in which he's used that apparently 'encyclopedic' knowledge of the relevant Acts to defend the indefensible.

The other was the thread on new laws governing online porn in the Digital Economy Bill, where he quoted bits and pieces of the various Acts and then proceeded to misrepresent 'evidence' he was using to counter my arguments that porn is simply not as 'harmful' as its detractors would have you believe. When, amongst other things, he quoted newspaper reports of court cases in which porn appeared to play a part in the commission of a crime, without any further detail of what part it really played (thereby making it much harder for anyone unfamiliar with such wilful misdirection to mount a counter-argument), it's no wonder some people - like me - are beginning to wonder about his motives.

Tim Berners-Lee dismisses the government's new powers with the comment: "Dark, dark days". Unless you're every bit as power-crazy as the current Tory government seems to be, that comment - from this man - should tell you everything you need to know about what these new laws mean in a so-called 'free' society. There is simply no defence of them.

Petition now reaches 150,655 signatures

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199

I bother to read the government briefings and referred to parts of legislation. Its all available on line. You can see what has informed MPs votes, at least the MPs who bother to read the information they are given, which sadly is few.

If you choose to not believe the opinion of Judges who have heard all the evidence of the cases and say the child rapist was emulating porn. If you choose to not believe a Government commissioned independent overview of all available psychological research evidence. If you choose to not believe numerous neuroscience research. If you choose to not believe sexual offences crime stats showing rising sex offences including by young children. If you instead choose to believe that on average children first seeing internet porn at 8 years old, and children having easy access to a never-ending supply of hardcore porn is not harmful. Then there is no hope of you changing your opinion regardless of evidence.

As for my motives I do not want children, particularly young children supplied with porn, particularly hardcore and extreme porn. Because on the balance of probabilities its harmful to them.

As far as snoopers charter I see the internet as a public area. I do not see the internet as an area that should be lawless. I want the various public bodies able to catch criminals. I am for being able to prosecute terrorists, paedophiles, organized crime, internet crime. I am also for more safeguards and judicial oversight of the request of communications data both of which the new legislation contains.

I have a healthy dose cynism when it comes to government briefings as they are invariable used to sell a proposition to us the voters, rather than to explain the benefits. This has been particularly true since Blair came to power and news management became so important.

Further I have seen Regulatory Impact Assessments - which are based on little more than guesswork which does not hold up to a moments scrutiny


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It is not about the internet being some kind of lawless wild west. Privacy is a cornerstone of a free democratic society, you cannot have the latter without the former. Electronic communication should have the same right to privacy as non-electronic and the judicial oversight are little more than a fig leaf . Not only that but the kind of bulk surveillance has been demonstrated to be ineffective and potentially damaging. Making it 'legal' does not change that.

If you've been online as long as i have and i've supported stuff that uses arpa-net you'll know that you are a road to nowhere...yep its very hard to stop kids seeing what they in theory shouldn't but once the knowledge is out theres no way of stopping it...we could stop parents having kids after the age of the oldest is 5 to ensure they do not hear any unsettling moans and groans for example and walk in to see something that they're not supposed to see till they're 16 at least.

We now have a situation where every comms upgrade could possible have to be authorised and whatever the spooks want implanted in it, security also can be turned off thus meaning anyone can read what you are sending which isn't exactly great for internet banking.

The snoopers charter is suited to a dictatorship than a democracy .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUVy920C7TY

The legislation brings the internet in line with paper mail and phone.
The UK government has been intercepting communications since the 17th Century.
One of the things about the new legislation is that it changes the historic balance on authorizing surveillance between government and judiciary towards more judicial say, more judicial oversight. The UK is not the USA we have traditionally had surveillance authorized by the government, home secretary, not by the judiciary.

Since neither one of us knows how that opinion was formed, since all we have to go on is what the newspapers have reported (and most - if not all - newspapers have long peddled the myth of 'harm' in this context), and since I haven't seen a single piece of research which examines the evidence which gave rise to that judgement and concluded that it 'proved' a link between porn and the commission of that crime, then I stand by my assertion that this does not amount to evidence of any kind. To say otherwise is a misrepresentation of the truth.


Which is obviously going to reach that conclusion, because it serves a predetermined purpose (ie. an excuse for censorship). Any half-decent research, even that which concludes porn might be harmful under certain indeterminate circumstances, includes caveats which urge readers not to regard such conclusions as gospel, since they are circumstantial at best, and nothing more.


None of which reaches the conclusions you're claiming, only that it might be true. I might win the lottery next week. I probably won't, but I might. All you have on your side of this particular debate is a mountain of 'maybe'. And there is plenty of other research which says there is no such correlation, or that wherever such conclusions might be drawn, it is entirely insubstantial. A 2014 article in the New York Times does a better job of analysing the current state of research than I can. However much you want to believe otherwise, all the research you're holding up as 'evidence' does not amount to any such thing.


This is nothing more than wishful thinking based on an assertion that you want desperately to be true. Either porn is harmful or it isn't. And since no one has ever been harmed in the manner you suggest, it is not unreasonable to conclude that such harm does not exist. Claiming that a judge's opinion - based on evidence that hasn't been independently tested - amounts to proof of any kind whatsoever is a wilful misrepresentation of the truth. Which is why I take your claims of rising sex offences by young children, and the possible reasons you ascribe to those figures, with an Everest-sized pinch of salt.


Most other parents don't want them to see it either. Not because it's 'harmful', but because it's clearly inappropriate for them. But it's OUR job to protect our kids, OUR responsibility, OUR privilege. We don't need the government or other self-appointed censors to do our job for us.


I'd rather take Tim Berners-Lee's view of this thing than make excuses for the inexcusable. The very fact that MP's have deliberately excluded themselves from this legislation renders it utterly, obscenely shameful. That point alone renders it indefensible.

'Mark_Jones9' is putting out the standard propaganda spiel, he clearly has no interest in a debate.

He is amazingly well informed and has all the classic arguments lined up and ready to go.

Is he paid to do this?, I assume so. It's just not credible he's an interested member of the public.

Indeed.

This is exactly what I've been thinking, too...