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UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

theguardian.com

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Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#31

Post by barrkel »

vidarh wrote: post #27
beaconstudios wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you say that like undermining Corbyn is an objectively bad thing. He's an extremely divisive element of the current Labour party and the primary reason why I (and I consider myself a liberal first and foremost) cannot support the current Labour leadership. Labour's always been a mix of liberals and socialists but in my opinion Corbyn is too far to the latter to ever unify the party behind his ideas.

There are more Labour members supporting Corbyn than there were Labour members total before Corbyn became leader. Labour will never be unified as long as there is first past the post in the UK, and currently at least the left of the party dominates the membership. Any challenger to Corbyn at this point would depend on the support of the left of the party even more than during the last challenge.

Polarization of the main parties is creating big democratic deficits in UK governance. The Tory party membership is heavily skewed towards Brexit despite it having a razor thin majority in the country; while Labour is heavily skewed towards Marxists, despite Britain being roughly centre-right throughout its modern history, by European standards. As a result, neither parties have natural constituencies in the electorate to deliver a majority right now. And LibDem are a rounding error.

And of course Corbyn is completely out of whack with his membership, being pro-Brexit while the party is heavily for Remain. Remain effectively doesn't have democratic representation, and nor does the business-focused middle ground.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#32

Post by iamben »

benevol wrote: post #29

What we have learned thanks to Snowden is this: You can never trust your government. Mass surveillance was conducted illegally before and continues to this day. Does anyone really think some "law" will change this?

I agree. But that doesn't mean we should make it legal, and, as per the snooper's charter, relax who has access to it. I'm glad we still have people fighting for us.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#33

Post by mrtksn »

simias wrote: post #26
mrtksn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be binary. Sure they wouldn't want to let USA complete access, so they can spend their time keeping the US espionage on the desired domain and everyone happy and politicians elected.

Do you have anything particular in mind or are you just guessing? This is all very vague and smells faintly of tinfoil-hattery. Not that I don't believe that the USA are heavily involved in Europe and cooperate pretty tightly with European intelligence services but the original question was about mass surveillance of the citizens. For example how do you explain the GDRP if the point is to let the USA snoop on Europea…

I don't remember where exactly I read about this, but I recall that it was an opinion peace based on the NSA leaks.

Anyway, there's the Five Eyes alliance that does it, why wouldn't there be an arrangement between EU and USA?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

>"Documents leaked by Snowden in 2013 revealed that the FVEY have been spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other in order to circumvent restrictive domestic regulations on surveillance of citizens."

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#35

Post by Asdfbla »

beaconstudios wrote: post #14
crdoconnor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. He aligns with the deeply unpopular Blairite wing of the party and has spent an awful lot of time and effort trying to undermine Corbyn. This is good though. He should stick to doing stuff like this.

you say that like undermining Corbyn is an objectively bad thing. He's an extremely divisive element of the current Labour party and the primary reason why I (and I consider myself a liberal first and foremost) cannot support the current Labour leadership. Labour's always been a mix of liberals and socialists but in my opinion Corbyn is too far to the latter to ever unify the party behind his ideas.

Yet Corbyn's somewhat populist rhetoric seems to have made Labour competitive again, or were their good election results just a coincidence and had nothing to do with Corbyn?

Just curious, since I'm not British and probably only have a very superficial understanding of the politics.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#36

Post by nkkollaw »

What is the real reason behind surveillance?

The government(s)'s excuse is terrorism, but terrorism in Europe doesn't kill a big enough amount of people to justify these drastic measures. I would argue also that no one has proven that it's efficient at preventing terrorist attacks.

There must be a reason, I don't get it. Is it just because governments can, so they do it? It is to create the basis for some initiative that is planned for the future when technology improves..?

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#37

Post by gnocchi »

benevol wrote: post #29

What we have learned thanks to Snowden is this: You can never trust your government. Mass surveillance was conducted illegally before and continues to this day. Does anyone really think some "law" will change this?

Good point, but if we can't rely on the law to help us what will be left?

I wonder if one can make a request for information (Freedom of Information Act) about data personally held from the government?

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#38

Post by benevol »

iamben wrote: post #32
benevol wrote: post #29

What we have learned thanks to Snowden is this: You can never trust your government. Mass surveillance was conducted illegally before and continues to this day. Does anyone really think some "law" will change this?

I agree. But that doesn't mean we should make it legal, and, as per the snooper's charter, relax who has access to it. I'm glad we still have people fighting for us.

> I'm glad we still have people fighting for us.

Absolutely. We should just not forget that it is not a law or any other promise from government officials that will protect us from mass surveillance.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#39

Post by treerock »

wjoe wrote: post #28
mabbo wrote: post #6

I know of very few British MPs, being a Canadian who watches occasionally British panel shows, but I do hear about Tom Watson fairly frequently and almost always for things I am in favor of. Now here he is championing the fight against mass surveillance as well. British folks: is this guy eventually going to replace Corbyn? He seems likeable enough to. And he has a sense of humor- the first time I heard of him was wh…

Watson is one of very few British politicians who seems to care about privacy, surveillance, and internet issues. He was also a big part of the "phone hacking" case against the Murdoch press. It's a shame we don't have more politicans like him. And it's not even a partisan issue - it doesn't surprise me that the Conservatives want to bring in more surveillance and internet laws, but even their biggest opponents on th…

> He seems more of a background figure who does best focusing on the issues he cares about, and not so much of a leadership type.

He's Labour's Deputy Leader.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#40

Post by crdoconnor »

barrkel wrote: post #31
vidarh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more Labour members supporting Corbyn than there were Labour members total before Corbyn became leader. Labour will never be unified as long as there is first past the post in the UK, and currently at least the left of the party dominates the membership. Any challenger to Corbyn at this point would depend on the support of the left of the party even more than during the last challenge.

Polarization of the main parties is creating big democratic deficits in UK governance. The Tory party membership is heavily skewed towards Brexit despite it having a razor thin majority in the country; while Labour is heavily skewed towards Marxists, despite Britain being roughly centre-right throughout its modern history, by European standards. As a result, neither parties have natural constituencies in the electora…

The idea that Corbyn or his supporters are all Marxists because they want to nationalize a decrepit subsidized rail system used to suck profits out of commuters is on the batshit extreme end of right wing. This stuff is both extemely popular among Brits and common sense.

By historical standards Corbyn is pretty soft left. It's the establishment and London media bubble that have moved into crazy town.

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