U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

lol, more whataboutisms.

Yes, race issues in the US are a huge issue. That doesn't mean thought policing in the UK isn't also a huge issue.

The difference is I don't deny the issues you mention, nor do I try to deflect by referring to, say, the growing bladed weapons epidemic in the UK.

For someone that said they were done when asked to provide sources, you're participating in this discussion more than I would have expected. Is this what you consider 'being done', writing low-effort fallacious comments?

> (which literally just mean they’ve investigated a complaint)

It means they showed up to grill people over thoughts, and it's baffling how you don't see that as an issue.

> It's a shame here to see you assuming bad faith. This reeks of tribalism, not objective argument.

Because your comments are bad faith.

And I’ve addressed all your other nonsense already.

What you’re not grasping is the cultural differences between our two police forces.

In America, the police go relatively unchecked. They buy ex-military hardware, lie in interrogations, literally kill their own innocent citizens because of their skin colour, and at no point face any repercussions. So laws in the US need to be water tight to prevent abuse — and even then, they still get flouted by those who should be upholding them.

Whereas Europe have a hell of a lot more checks and balances for our police forces. Bad cops get struck off. Good cops cannot place charges without approval from a whole other department, and thus not emotionally connected to the case. If police lie or exaggerate in those reports then they’re up for a plethora of serious charges themselves. So UK law often feels more ripe for abuse but that’s because we have stronger processes in place to protect against abuse.

Coming back to your original point, you don’t know the seriousness of the comments shared. We’ve already given examples about how online comments can have real and damaging physical consequences. Such as organising riots. People in the US have been charged for doing just the same thing. In the UK the law is called “hate speech” but that’s doesn’t mean that people are being investigated just for saying “I hate x”. Just like how there are multiple different names for different types of reasons and severity of killing someone, “hate speech” is just a term that covers a wide plethora of circumstances. And if — and when — those “hate speech” laws are abused, the police are raked over the coals for overreach.

So when you claim “whataboutism” what’s actually happening is I’m demonstrating the cultural differences that you seem oblivious too.

When you claim “thought crimes” you’re completely missing the nuance in these cases.

And when you’re claiming the police are abusing their powers you’re being, at best, deeply ironic. At worst, deeply ignorant.

In fact this whole argument and your single mindedness can be entirely summed up as “deeply ignorant”.

So why do UK citizens defend this claim against “thought police”? Because it literally isn’t happening. It’s just some bullshit concocted by right wing media (the same people who talk about rigged elections, “out of control immigration” and other made up bullshit) and Americans who want to feel better about their own shitty police force.

> Because your comments are bad faith.

No, they are not. I thought you were done? Why are you still replying just to insult?

I'm sorry my view offends you, but unlike you I'm not trying to offend you, it's my honest view and I thin the evidence supports it.

If you think I'm an idiot, fine, but could you maybe just stop replying at this point instead of violating HN guidelines just to let me know? I'm down to have a civil discussion, but that clearly isn't happening at this point, and it isn't because of me.

> And I’ve addressed all your other nonsense already.

It's not nonsense, and you haven't addressed the desire not to handshake being reported, nor the 2500 or so incorrectly reported NCHIs.

---

You edited your comment to add a lot after I replied, so I'll address it here.

> What you’re not grasping is the cultural differences between our two police forces.

You forget I lived in the UK for a fairly long time. Also, while I live in the US, I'm not from the US.

> In America, the police go relatively unchecked. They buy ex-military hardware, lie in interrogations, literally kill their own innocent citizens because of their skin colour, and at no point face any repercussions. So laws in the US need to be water tight to prevent abuse — and even then, they still get flouted by those who should be upholding them.

You're generalizing a country far more than diverse than the UK here in terms of differences in smaller government reigons and their police forces. What you've said here is not universally true for the US by any means, just for certain states.

> So UK law often feels more ripe for abuse but that’s because we have stronger processes in place to protect against abuse.

In this case, clearly not. The problem is not police abuse, it's police showing up at all because someone didn't want to shake hands or expressed a non-hateful thought on Twitter.

> Coming back to your original point, you don’t know the seriousness of the comments shared.

We do, because the people that get harassed by the cops report them.

> We’ve already given examples about how online comments can have real and damaging physical consequences.

Yes, they can, but that tends to be mobs or cyber bulling, outright insults. The cases that have been reported are not anything like that. If anything, it's UK cops being used, manipulated and unwittingly used as weapons, which isn't a much better look than if they are being malicious.

> Such as organising riots. People in the US have been charged for doing just the same thing.

That doesn't come under hate speech, but some other laws. Plenty of riots have nothing to do with hate speech, and the issue isn't the same. There may be crossover sometimes, but not necessarily.

Therefore, people being arrested in the US for organizing riots is entirely irrelevant to what we are discussing.

> In the UK the law is called “hate speech” but that’s doesn’t mean that people are being investigated just for saying “I hate x”.

Yes, it does, and that's exactly the problem! There was literally an article in the Telegraph of that exact thing happening, twice!

How is this not blatant denial on your part?

> So when you claim “whataboutism” what’s actually happening is I’m demonstrating the cultural differences that you seem oblivious too.

How incredibly disingenuous.

You mention cops killing black people, which has nothing to do with cultural differences unless you consider racism and lack of training in rural areas in red states cultural differences.

No, cultural differences is in no way a justification for your blatant whataboutism. A cop killing an unarmed black man in the US has NOTHING to do with cops showing up at peoples doors in the UK for sharing non hate thoughts online, holding up a blank piece of paper or refusing to shake hands. Honestly it's a really crappy thing to try and reduce the killing of an innocent black man to any of those things just to try and save your crummy argument.

> When you claim “thought crimes” you’re completely missing the nuance in these cases.

No, what's happening here is you are giving the benefit of doubt to your government even when there are blatant examples that don't warrant it. What is the nuance for the examples in the Telegraph article that would defend against the notion they were thought crimes?

> And when you’re claiming the police are abusing their powers you’re being, at best, deeply ironic. At worst, deeply ignorant.

More insults. No, I'm being honest and objective, while you're bending over backwards to be tribalistic like the worst examples of Americans, and then because you can't actually support your point and I'm not conceding, resorting to insults and personal attacks.

You have no argument, and your attempts to defend your point trying to justify Orwellian actions in the UK by accusing me of cultural misunderstandings (which is funny since I bet I've spent more time in the UK than you've spent in the US) and and likening the UK incidents to the unarmed shooting of a black man are desperate and easily dismissed.

> In fact this whole argument and your single mindedness can be entirely summed up as “deeply ignorant”.

NO, you're simply being deeply arrogant and disingenuous. Your examples you've provided don't map to the UK incidents, and when pressed you outwardly make excused to not provide them when asked, despite writing an essay to make the ridiculous argument you did above.

You keep accusing me of being ignorant, yet I've lived in the UK for about 5 years, how long did you spend in the US? And except the evidence supports my claims, while you need to reply on interpretations, speculation and bs claims of cultural misunderstandings.

> So why do UK citizens defend this claim against “thought police”? Because it literally isn’t happening.

Some do, the patriots, others understand the issue and are out protesting against it fighting to keep or regain freedoms. That clearly isn't you though. Why fight for an issue when you can deny it and whatbaoutism any attempt to point it out?

> whataboutism

You keep using that word but I don’t think you understand what it means.

In this conversation I’m making comparisons. Comparisons are important ways to gauge the effectiveness of policies.

What you’re doing is saying comparisons don’t matter because your argument only works if you look at it from a shallow view point.

And then you have the audacity to say everyone else is acting in bad faith apart from yourself.

> That doesn't come under hate speech, but some other laws. Plenty of riots have nothing to do with hate speech, and the issue isn't the same. There may be crossover sometimes, but not necessarily.

Exactly. US police has the same powers and arrests people for the same things but those laws are named differently.

So what you’re banging on about is a misconception based purely on the naming of things.

There have been some instances of people being inappropriately contacted by the police over things they wrote online. I think that this has largely stopped following the court judgment that I mention downthread. I think there's broad agreement here on what the police should and shouldn't be doing. The issue is whether it's actually accurate to paint a picture of the UK as a country where the police regularly harass people about their online postings. If people in the UK strike you as unduly unconcerned, consider the possibility that it's because this isn't actually happening to anything like the extent that some people on Twitter would like you to believe that it does.

By the way, you seem to be using 'the government' in a very broad 90s internet libertarian sense. The police in the UK are operationally independent of the government of the day. As Wikipedia explains:

> Police officers [in the UK] hold office and are not employees. Each officer is an independent legal official and not an "agent of the police force, police authority or government". This allows the police their unique status and notionally provides the citizens of the UK a protection from any government that might wish unlawfully to use the police as an instrument against them.