Once the UK was both Great and Free...now?

What it is is no different from the record or acceptance of abuse for any other communication method.

 

The fact that it gets reported actually implies we have a better system.

The most corrupt systems don't exactly keep things open.

 

No system is 'better' when the internet is concerned.

Since the net started, way back when. It was always going to be under the iron fist of goverment control.

Unfourtantly. We are witnessing in our lifetimes. The freedom dream for online is dead. Get used to it!

And these nationalistic games of what 'country' is more free. Is distracting from the obvious. We the people, society in general has failed by allowing the greedy bastards in goverments to regulate to begin with.

 

We have never had a time in which ones every move can be routinely monitored, your position noted, your contacts recorded, your views heard and you punished by a government that does not like any of it...The technology simply did not exist. Today you need to identify the person for abuse but in a few years the ability to note almost everyone will be there...and we have no protections if the government is not restrained by a rule of law...

And this action is an example of NOT having any restraints, nor penalties for abuse.

 

No it doesn't imply you have a better system. It gives the public impression of a better system, which is no indication of accuracy.

What about the Darknet? Is it still kicking? I suppose they will hem in the internet and then start on the Darknet, but the people who use that may be one step ahead. As in all aspects of life, there are criminals who make it a job to always find ways around the law.

There is ability to monitor a fair amount of activity already as someone else pointed out. This is just a new area of criminal activity which they need to work up laws for.

The law failed to get through anyway, as predicted.

 

What was proposed by Labour was a central government database. That is not what is being proposed this time, nor would such a thing ever be accepted by the Lib Dems at least. What is being considered is updating the law to keep up with newer forms of communication, so that the rules which apply to allowing the 'live' tapping of telephones under specific circumstances to deal with particular criminal activity, for example, can also be used if those suspects are using skype, email, texts or whatever to communicate instead. At the moment the law is simply out of date with technology. There are some disagreements between the coalition parties (for example, the Lib Dems will not accept that permission (via a warrant) should be given to the security services by a government minister for such monitoring to occur, and are insisting that such warrants can only be given by a judge - there will undoubtably be other safeguards that will be demanded when the details are being discussed), and this is something on which there will obviously be much consultation and ammendment before anything is formally put to parliament. It's not the great government 'big brother' scheme that some are suggesting, though, and nowhere near the kind of central government database of online activity for the security services to trawl through if they feel like it that Labour wanted to create - even then, IF the detailed proposals (when they emerge) would have any kind of significant impact on civil liberties, the lib dems have made it clear that they WILL block them (there is a level of compromise within any coalition government, of course, but that has its limits!).

 

My bad...I did what I always tell non-Brits not to do and didn't check out that what a newspaper said was correct, as in just going with....A previous attempt to introduce a similar law was abandoned by the former Labour government in 2006 in the face of fierce opposition.

I wish I could be as sure as you that the LIbDems would actually block anything, because I am looking at having no party to vote for in an independent Scotland if they continue to stuff their principles down the toilet of UK power politics. The last straw for me was what the Coalition did in the welfare cuts, to the disabled in particular, with LibDem connivance.....not that I have a problem with welfare reform properly considered and implemented..but the decisions made were neither.

 

The Cons/Lib Dems have not been in power during a terrorist attack as yet, have they? Labour were.

Having seen the Government reaction to the English riots last year and how they bent and generally rode right over the law when rioters were processed and sentenced, I wouldn't hold out any hope of reasonable behaviour by the Cons if, God forbid, a terrorist incident arises.

 

There have clearly been points where the Lib Dems have had to compromise on issues, and not do things the way they would like to - as minority partners in a coalition, that is an inevitable reality. These have obviously been picked up on an widely reported, but what is less well reported is some of the concessions they have gained as a result (that's inevitable - bad news sells papers, good news doesn't). Student fees is an obvious one - fees went up against the wishes of the Lib Dems, BUT they were able to restructure the payments so that people will actually pay back less per month than they would have with the lower fees under the old system. More generally, although there have been concessions made on taxes and cuts in places, the return is the raising of the lower tax threshold, which was entirely a Lib Dem policy.

On this one, though, there is very, very little room for compromise - civil liberties go so fundementally to the core of what the Lib Dems stand for that they just cannot and will not compromise on them. Updating of the existing rules to cover new technologies is one thing, and there may be some limited room for manouvre on making such things work effectively, but they will simply not support any new 'big brother' legislation for widespread snooping on the population, and they have already made that very clear.

 

Yet...it is like the drive to tax the internet...greedy government will never give up on it and once enacted, it will never go away.

 

I suppose suggesting that there should be a realisation that there has to be a balance between security and liberty might be a bit difficult. Good luck to any government that can pull that off. The problem they have is that there is never a guarantee that firmer controls will result in increased security. And if civil liberties were privileged over security and an outrage occurred then the government in office would be pilloried for not doing more to protect society. Perhaps if governments started to discuss things with their citizens it might be a better idea. I don't mean focus groups, that's just pandering, I mean straight talking and explanation of what they want to do and why. Wait, I think I can hear 56th Squadron (The Firepigs) starting up their new Wessex Saddlebacks for a test flight....

 

The Internet is already taxed in the UK,you pay VAT on your Internet bill every month.

 

Quite true; of course there are those who might say that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, but if this goes ahead it's a massive intrusion into our civil liberties. Having said that Britain already hosts the NSA listening station at RAF Menwith Hill which has the capability to monitor any communications anywhere on the planet.
These are worrying developements where an overheard key-word or an innocent joke could lead to a nightmare for someone.

 

Oh, and there's still the good old fashioned mail. You can't eavesdrop on a letter...

 

… but..... when people can be convinced that it is good theology to drive a big plane into a tall building......… there are consequences that result from such decisions.

 

Reading the article I've found that they can't actually look at the contents of emails or phone calls for that matter.
So really all their really doing is getting information the service provider already has.

Also this isn't old news as it was announced in 2012 and has been called by industry official's as being difficult to operate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17576745

 

A proper algorithm would easily allow this to happen.

 

is called dataming

 

It's quite hard to have a brit girlfriend nowadays,
One could never utter private intimate innuendos within that means of communication for the third party who is listening needs to be focused all the time with the national security eavesdropping thing, he should not be distracted.

 

The trick is to include some statements at regular intervals that'll make the notoriously prudish government workers faint, like simply adding "...and then we'll have some jolly good anal intercourse!" at the end of sentences.