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UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

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Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#111

Post by quasque »

ionised wrote: post #43
peterlawest wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it helps ensure security. I don't believe they'd bother doing it if it didn't. I think you're a bit arrogant for assuming they give a fuck what you write to your girlfriend on iMessages. I know you probably disagree with that, but this is my point - not everyone agrees that surveillance is bad. And I'm not alone - I think most people don't really care about surveillance. And this isn't a conspiracy - it's j…

> I believe it helps ensure security. Your beliefs are wrong, as we have been shown that this mass surveillance has failed to prevent even one terrorist attack since its inception. Couple that with the immense amount of (wasted) tax payer money it costs to run and you've got a disgusting abuse of power and resources in exchange for the mere illusion of security to those who fail to actually do the research required t…

> Your beliefs are wrong, as we have been shown that this mass surveillance has failed to prevent even one terrorist attack since its inception.

We don't actually know this. Mass surveillance may have led to 'extrajudicial' methods of thwarting terrorist attacks, i.e. death squads or drone killings. Or when cases of terrorist plots have been taken to trial, its use could have been masked by parallel construction of evidence.

This level of underhandedness seems to be increasing in recent times. For example, there is a terrorist conspiracy trial currently ongoing in the UK that is being held almost entirely in secret - the public and media are not permitted to know the evidence or the sources of evidence against the suspects. In fact up until recently even the existence of the trial and the identities of the suspects were under a gag order, for reasons unknown[1].

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jun/12/secret-terror-tri...

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#112

Post by netcan »

ivanca wrote: post #102
netcan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are issues that people care about in theory, in books & political science courses and such and there are issues that people care about in practice. In their political sphere, people care about their wealth (economy), their identity (nationalism, religion) & drama (political scandals). These are pretty constant. They are the bread and butter of politics and have ben since ancient time. When wealth decreases, ide…

Everyone should care about this; but as you said most people don't see the issue in practical terms. I think is our jobs as tech-savy people to put it in more practical terms for them, someway the average Joe can relate to, for example: - NSA and GCHQ are probably watching your kids naked, a lot, because exploits from webcams are very common, and they cannot know before hand if someone is using Skype to plan tewowist…

To the extent that I'm right, I don't think this is enough. You can respond to criticisms about blackmail exploits or watching your kids with layers of laws, bureaucracy and compromises. You can deny it or call it isolated incidences.

To fight something like this, we need something that makes people draw a line. An uncrossable one. The main item a politician can identify with.

Otherwise, this is a negotiation. One we'll lose.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#113

Post by king_jester »

rayiner wrote: post #62
madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

Not every cultural clash should be compared to the Holocaust. There are plenty of historical examples of societies that got eaten from within when they couldn't maintain their culture in the face of aggressive foreign ones.

> There are plenty of historical examples of societies that got eaten from within when they couldn't maintain their culture in the face of aggressive foreign ones.

There's an implicit valuation of culture in this statement. Most cultures throughout history melded and adapted to other cultures, both in little and big ways. Xenophobia about cultural invasion is also throughout history, but the reality is that dominant cultures are never "pure" and diversity of culture was actively censored and/or ignored by some historians for a long time.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#114

Post by disputin »

rayiner wrote: post #62
madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

Not every cultural clash should be compared to the Holocaust. There are plenty of historical examples of societies that got eaten from within when they couldn't maintain their culture in the face of aggressive foreign ones.

Agreed that not every cultural clash should be compared to 1930's Germany. Alarmist. There's a long way to go before getting to that state of affairs. Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, South Africa, ...

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#115

Post by gambiting »

peterlawest wrote: post #32
aluhut wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these benefits?

I believe it helps ensure security. I don't believe they'd bother doing it if it didn't. I think you're a bit arrogant for assuming they give a fuck what you write to your girlfriend on iMessages. I know you probably disagree with that, but this is my point - not everyone agrees that surveillance is bad. And I'm not alone - I think most people don't really care about surveillance. And this isn't a conspiracy - it's j…

I come from a country where 30 years ago every single phone call was listened to by a government worker, and everyone knew,and no one cared. People literally did not care, using the same arguments as you are using - why would they worry about what they are saying to their girlfriends, wives, husbands, so on. And you know what? For most part, the government didn't care. But it was gathering notes on everyone - where are you going, when, with whom, are you drinking, are you buying something - everything that could be of importance was recorded,but never acted upon. Unless you managed to piss off someone. Unless you said something bad about the police or a local politician. Then these notes would be found, even from several years before,and they would be used to put you in prison for 20+ years, as a "danger to society".

This is exactly what is happening right now, and you have to be a complete IDIOT to not see that this is the case. Governments are gathering loads of data about every single one of us. Just because they decide not to act on that data right now,does not mean we should not be worried, and you couldn't be more wrong when you say that the government does not care what you write to your gf on iMessage.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#116

Post by rayiner »

king_jester wrote: post #113
rayiner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every cultural clash should be compared to the Holocaust. There are plenty of historical examples of societies that got eaten from within when they couldn't maintain their culture in the face of aggressive foreign ones.

> There are plenty of historical examples of societies that got eaten from within when they couldn't maintain their culture in the face of aggressive foreign ones. There's an implicit valuation of culture in this statement. Most cultures throughout history melded and adapted to other cultures, both in little and big ways. Xenophobia about cultural invasion is also throughout history, but the reality is that dominant…

> There's an implicit valuation of culture in this statement.

Damn right.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#117

Post by fit2rule »

madaxe_again wrote: post #94
fit2rule wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem in the UK is: groupthink. The national identity is oriented around just how conformant and pliable an individual is, in relation to their peers, and thinking what everyone else thinks is, fundamentally, at the core of what it means to be an Englishman. Don't rock the boat, don't go outside the boundaries of 'acceptable society', and so on. Well, I'm sorry to say, but you English deserve your oppre…

That's the human condition, and what you've just defined isn't "British culture", but all cultures. You can hardly have a homogenous whole without individual conformity.

What you've basically said is "you can't have a compliant society unless everyone complies" .. but that's exactly the point I'm trying to make: compliant societies are weak and prone to immense amount of corruption. The right to express dissent shall not be infringed, if you want to live in a land not rendered useless by tyranny. As is the case in the UK.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#118

Post by makomk »

pjc50 wrote: post #63
madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

There is certainly a slippery slope, but I think we need to recognise that there exist at least some organisations acting under the "Islamic" banner that are extraordinarily dangerous. 'ISIS' and 'Boko Haram' are the two most recent that come to mind. They already have a track record of mass execution of their enemies.

Let me put it this way - one of the recent scare stories here in the UK involved a supposed "Islamic takeover" of schools in Birmingham that didn't get noticed by inspectors because the schools were delivering an impressively good secular education to deprived inner-city kids. Apparently a few teachers seated girls and boys seperately, though, which is un-British according to our prime minster and education minister who were both educated at exclusive boys-only schools and are proud of it (as were most of our other cabinet minsters).

Funnily enough, the politicians and journalists making a big deal out of this scandal are strong supporters of replacing state-run schools with state-funded academies run by Christian fundamentalists, especially failing ones in deprived inner city areas. Some of those have been caught teaching kids in science classes that the scientific evidence says the world is 6000 years old like the Bible says, but that didn't cause a big controversy for some weird reason. In fact, our leader David Cameron has been using this to push for more Christian indoctrination in schools.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#119

Post by CWuestefeld »

wolf550e wrote: post #57
madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

Why would you think the UK would round up and execute its Muslim citizens? And if nothing like this has any chance of occurring, just finding out who is in contact with real terrorists and who isn't seems useful, whether they're Muslim terrorists or Breivik. It is of course vitally important that information gathered for this purpose cannot be used for commercial or political ends, which is the hard part (maybe impos…

This comment is misguided, but it doesn't deserve a downvote. It vocalizes the argument coming from the authority, and so it needs to be examined - and we can't do that if we downvote it to invisibility.

Taking away a person's privacy is a punishment. You can't do it because it might bear interesting information. That you don't know ahead of time whether that information will be important is no excuse: you can't punish someone unless you know they're guilty.

Further, given the shroud of secrecy around the collection of the information, how can we be assured that it's not going to be used for commercial or political ends? Even if you trust the present keepers of these secrets, will the next batch be as clean?

Why do you believe that it's so important to gather this information? Is there any real evidence that it's been used in ways that is truly important to our safety (not just for catching drug dealers), and that cannot be accomplished through conventional means?

And how can you even know? If the government won't even own up to what they're doing, how can the electorate weigh the factors? Given that the nature of the problem renders democratic action impossible, how can it be tolerated in a democratic state?

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#120

Post by austincheney »

Nursie wrote: post #7

The political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. As was the press silence (other than the Guardian). The press in this country are far more interested in reality tv, political infighting, fanning flames about 'immigrants' and what the royals are up to. And I suspect it's because most of the public don't care either. There are people who would like privacy, who think that GCHQ should be accountable and then th…

Why bother blaming politics you don't control when instead you can blame the technology that makes this possible in the first place? Support an alternative like http://mailmarkup.org/value.xhtml
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