Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

independent.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 93 posts

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#61

Post by wfunction »

madaxe_again wrote: post #30
wfunction wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're far more likely to be killed by alcohol induced liver damage Try telling that to someone who doesn't drink.

That's probably still more likely than being in a terror attack.

Maybe, but at that point does your brain think in terms of probabilities and expected values anymore (if it ever did)?

For example, when you're comparing prices at a store, you might be so rational that you perfectly compute the expected payoff for each product and choose the optimal one. But does your brain work the same way when deciding whether to steal the product too? If the expected payoff for that was higher, would you just go ahead and steal it?

Don't you think people might not think the same way about the more common cases and the less common cases?

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#62

Post by celticninja »

notahacker wrote: post #52
madaxe_again wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably still more likely than being in a terror attack.

And the terror attack is probably still more likely than having one's laptop seized under anti-terror laws...

no it isnt, not by a long shot.

If you look at the number of seizures under the terrorism act and compare that to number of terrorist attacks over the same period, i bet there have been more seizures than attacks.

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#63

Post by peteretep »

madaxe_again wrote: post #36
peteretep wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's pretty much the only country in Europe that's never had a facist government.

Hehe, that's a good one. The UK has pretty much the only European fascist government to survive the second world war. I mean, what else would you call close collusion between "loyal" industry and state? WWII wasn't "freedom v. fascism" - it was one lot of fascists against the others - and the ones that won just had better branding. Fewer skulls on uniforms, just as much pomp and pageantry, more economic fascism than…

The UK only has a facist government if you're willing to reduce the term to meaning "one I don't like". Take a country with one of the most diverse capitals on earth, with one of the last protectionist and most liberal capitalist systems in the world, democratic traditions that go back to the magna carta, and you get ... not facism.

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#64

Post by dublinclontarf »

ck2 wrote: post #35

Will UK folks actually protest this or have they become like the US public, completely complacent and apathetic to all intrusions, as long as they can still go shopping at the mall, watch football and get drunk every weekend? So the pattern is basically, pass insane laws because "terrorist" then use the incredibly broad and overreaching laws beyond abuse for anything they want to do. Exactly the pattern law enforceme…

Am in the UK, no one is worried about this. FYI we don't have the freedom of speech guarantees that the US does, and this doesn't really bother people.

TLDR; storm in a teacup.

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#65

Post by notahacker »

jhrrsn wrote: post #13
Asbostos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still democracy and it still protects against extreme runaway government power. Ultimately the issue is that people want this. People are scared of terrorists. People do want the government to bend the rules to track them down. That's exactly what democracy is supposed to be. What it's not supposed to be is what everyone wants, fair, right or ensuring people's information is kept secret from the government. In s…

Yes, but I believe in a society where almost all of the major news outlets are owned by supporters of the current government, the politicians also have a strong ability to control what their voters are demanding.

Not really. The Murdochs are quite enamoured with Cameron, but they're not in the least bit interested in doing what he asks of them (and just as obsessed with opposing proposed press censorship as they are with reporting on Islamic terrorism). The staunchly anti-present-government Guardian and the Mirror sell plenty of newspapers. And even that bastion of knee-jerk conservatism Daily Mail is happy to run smear stories on the Prime Minister as a major exclusive. Government control over media output in the UK is minimal at best.

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#66

Post by nbevans »

And I'm okay with this. He talking to ISIS fighters over the internet. He was naive to think that MI6 wouldn't want to know precisely what he has been up to. I'm sure he is innocent and I'm sure MI6 aren't interested in him either; but more concerned with who he has been talking to. And don't worry, I'm sure he will get his computer back once they've cloned the hard disk.

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#67

Post by anon4 »

zephod wrote: post #49
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you would hesitate at calling Frankenstein human " Completely off topic nit-pick, and not to devalue your point (which I fully agree with), but Frankenstein was the scientist not the monster.

This problem has been solved for a couple of weeks now. http://xkcd.com/1589/

Sorry, I don't subscribe to fanon.

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#68

Post by vidarh »

notahacker wrote: post #52
madaxe_again wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably still more likely than being in a terror attack.

And the terror attack is probably still more likely than having one's laptop seized under anti-terror laws...

Over the last five years, the UK has had more well publicized incidents of people having their laptops seized (2) or destroyed at the insistence of GCHQ (1) than terror attacks causing bodily harm (2).

Both of the terror attacks in question were stabbings of individual victims (Mohammed Saleem and Lee Rigby). Both were killed.

So in fact, assuming conditions remain as they've been for the last five years (and for several years before that), one appears to be at least as likely to have ones laptop seized than getting harmed in a terror attack. On the other hand, the harm of the latter is still clearly worse, given that both victims were murdered.

There were also 3 bombing attempts (all by the same far right extremist - Pavlo Lapshyn - trying to kill muslims, but spectacularly failing because nobody were present when his bombs went off).

A further two planned attacks never happend (one involved a plan to bomb an EDL rally, but the would-be terrorists arrived to late and left without doing anything; one involved plans that were never attempted set into life at the time the people in question were arrested). The calibre of would-be terrorists in the UK thankfully seem to be rather low.

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#69

Post by maaarghk »

ck2 wrote: post #35

Will UK folks actually protest this or have they become like the US public, completely complacent and apathetic to all intrusions, as long as they can still go shopping at the mall, watch football and get drunk every weekend? So the pattern is basically, pass insane laws because "terrorist" then use the incredibly broad and overreaching laws beyond abuse for anything they want to do. Exactly the pattern law enforceme…

The second one. It's very depressing. Particularly as I voted to leave the UK last year. The democracy is a smoke screen. The government and the establishment are morally bankrupt. Journalists openly write/boast about colluding with politicians to advance certain agendas. Honestly I just find the fact that the country voted these people in a complete embarrassment.

Re: UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop

#70

Post by jon-wood »

scrollaway wrote: post #53
johncolanduoni wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not simple at all, especially if you don't want to become what you fight and restrict freedom of the press while you're doing it.

> That's not simple at all I did not mean simple in terms of implementation; you're absolutely right :) > and restrict freedom of the press while you're doing it Yeah. I think there's better ways. There's a lot to it... we need to incentivize media to report on the facts without twisting them, criminalize abuses of trust and power, create meaningful "trust rating" systems that actually impact audiences' willingness t…

What we need is better education, teaching critical thinking, and scepticism. If more people had the skills needed to look at a newspaper report and see that it's fabricated nonsense then no one would buy that newspaper, incentivising them to report on reality instead.

Sadly, politicians quite like the ability to manipulate the public via their friends in the press, and very few of them are going to campaign for making that less effective.

Post reply on HN