I thought this a joke

The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon

When I first read this I thought it an April Fools joke. Article available here

I also like this Reddit post:

The Western Nations of this world are all in a headlong rush to see who can become the realization of Oceania the fastest. England is currently in the lead on the surveillance part but I'd say America has claim to the warmongering half. If only we could reconcile the two we could finally live in the fascist paradise the world's been shaping into for the last 20 years.

Over the last year or so the Internet has been becoming an increasingly hostile place to have an opinion for me, and I know we have had our share of Orwellian dystopia posts. Sometimes I think Americans appear less concerned, because it just "some state in Europe" that has a liking for surveillance. Were this to go through, I doubt other countries in Europe or America would opt out. It is just too much power for a government to say they will give up "because of their principles"

In your professional opinion vesuvius, is this other Reddit post also an April Fools joke?

So this American looks at a UK resident such as yourself, vesuvius, and wonders why you distrust government. Isn't it trustworthy over there? If, say, the wealthiest citizens and their minions directly and indirectly control the debates, legislative agendas, and technologies that enable the Eye of Sauron to always be watching you, aren't you safer? Why is technology, which today makes privacy a joke and transparency the norm, feared? Shouldn't the Arab Spring's use of technology demonstrate that the people (like the French have always done) can rally in the streets and clog the business traffic and win? It is very true the protest movements in the UK an USA pale in comparison to the valiant and sincere efforts for fair governments in the Middle East, but what exactly are we to complain about today? Gasoline prices? I'm not feeling the paranoia. I'm not complaining yet, and I know they have cameras aimed up my kilt. Was there a baby in that murky washtub water I just dumped in the Shannon River? I'll go check. 

There hasn't been a good terroist bombing for a while. Guess I should be grateful.

So this is your foil response. On Guard! 

I do see both sides of the argument but am unconvinced it is pure evil; only potentially pure evil.

The problem with the last 20 years is the wealthy forgot to pay their dues...

@JohnAskew: The issue I have is with the blanket nature of it. Before, if criminality was suspected, a warrant is applied for through a magistrate, and the courts are there to protect you.

Pretty much everyone knows that you don't say anything distasteful if you want to be accepted as a visitor in America. I think the government there has done quite well with the way they enforce the law, yet they don't use any of these sweeping powers that are being proposed. What this new legislation proposes is that they can side-step this safeguard and use it at whim. They are not even proposing that this will reduce terrorism or prevent any other heinous crime. The fact that has has not been a terrorist bombing surely shows that this is unnecessary. Why should anyone know where I go to  when I am on the computer if it is legal, this is what freedom is, is it not?

I could wear transparent trousers that would show my purple mankini - I have a liking for them as underthings - and though I have nothing to hide, why should everyone be allowed to see? Why not stipulate that all houses should have glass walls, as we have nothing to hide, unless you are a criminal/felon with drugs or weapons? It is indeed more helpful to have transparent accommodation in this instance, but surely there are other ways that require similar if not identical effort that at least ensure that I don't have to air my dirty linen in public?

The state has to draw a line at some stage with the ability computers allow them to control their citizens, and at the moment it is saying it recommends transparent clothes for everyone, startling with "boxers" for blokes and "knickers" for ladies all the way to your shoes and trousers, "if you have nothing to hide" is not a valid enough reason to erode ones privacy in such a manner.

(I was joking about me wearing mankinis BTW)

32 minutes ago, vesuvius wrote

@JohnAskew: The issue I have is with the blanket nature of it. Before, if criminality was suspected, a warrant is applied for through a magistrate, and the courts are there to protect you.

They still need a warrant to search through it. The only difference is that now having got a warrant they can look through the emails you sent before they knew you were bad (that french gunman for instance probably didn't send any interesting emails after he started shooting people. The emails he sent two weeks before anyone knew he was a pscyho are probably the most interesting).

Do you seriously think the government has the resources to look through bajillions of emails about what you did at school today, or how many boxes of cakes you need for aunty margeries' 40th birthday?

TBH I'd be more worried that Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo between them own vastly more information about you than the government could ever dream about - and they don't need a warrant to look through it and they don't store it on servers in a compound surrounded by angry people with guns.

@evildictaitor: Slight difference between government and companies;

Government packs way more violence then companies, so bad company -> government wins.

36 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@evildictaitor: Slight difference between government and companies;

Government packs way more violence then companies, so bad company -> government wins.

You can democratically remove your government when they start misbehaving. Everything violent they do is in your name.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Yahoo are not democratically accountable.

Also I'm pretty sure that when it comes to violating the privacy and rights of their citizens, the UK is one of the least aggressive countries in the world. Sure, they have loads of CCTV and they want to read your emails, but they're not going to kill you because they don't like your political views, they don't poison the tea of foreign nationals and they don't fire live ammunition into riots.

I think of all the places I've lived, the UK is by far the most tolerant society I've lived in. And as the world's third most hated country after the US and Israel, if they need to read my emails (with a warrant) to stop psychos from blowing up my children, then frankly I don't see the problem.

The reason this is a problem is because it extends a system that has already been badly abused.  Local councils can now access surveillance data and have already been caught using it appropriately (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7468430.stm).  With this change they would have unfettered access to even more data.

These changes were proposed and then shelved by the previous government because they decided that they infringed civil liberties.  The current coalition have stated that they believe the government should have less power to invade privacy, but they're going ahead with this anyway.

Herbie

@Dr Herbie: My understanding is that the information would only be available to intelligence agencies under the Intelligence Services Act with a full warrant either from a magistrate (a "normal" warrant) or in person (i.e. can't be delegated) by the home secretary or foreign secretary (an "ISA" warrant).

This information will not be available to the police, to local councils, to politicians or to civil servants.

I do agree though - RIPA was a massive failure because it tried to relax the conditions under which interception could be used, and who it could be authorised by, and that led to monumental abuse by the police, local authorities and so on who got drunk on power and massively abused their position. Interception should only ever be allowed with a warrant, and I don't think this legislation changes that - it's just now they want the store the data so when they do get a warrant (and they still need one) they'll be able to look at emails on the warranted person from before the warrant was issued.

@evildictaitor: No matter how many votes you cast, once the law is put into place, it rarely gets revoked.

If you want to make Microsoft, Apple or Amazon go away, stop buying their products. That's like the ultimate democracy, if you ask me.

24 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@evildictaitor: No matter how many votes you cast, once a new UI is put into place, it rarely gets revoked.

If you want to make David Cameron go away, stop voting for him. That's like the ultimate democracy, if you ask me.

Seems pretty similar to me. Parliaments do change legislation based on public opinion. The electorate have the final say at the next election, when they get the opportunity en masse to overrule any politician. That's why governments do popular things just before elections, and why they don't need to just after them. In an undemocratic country you don't get the popular things just before the election, you just get the unpopular things all year round.

@evildictaitor:

UI's get revoked constantly, see Windows 8 for example.

And the politicians change, system does not. Laws get ammended rather then revoked.

You can't make one set of laws go away and replace them by another set, that would take ions or a war. Governments are big, slow and not efficient. If a company is run that way, their products become to expensive and they will fade away.

Therefore, I still claim that the free market is more a democracy then any democratic government.

@Maddus Mattus: UIs get tinkered with and so do laws. But the guiding principles behind UI design and good laws are steadfast. Nobody has tried to abolish the good-old-fashioned button - they've just updated the UI to cope with touch-screens. Similarly the law needs to update to cope with the fact that people today communicate on facebook and email rather than landlines and with letters. The government already can open your letters with a warrant. It's just when they made the law that allowed them to do so, facebook hadn't been invented.

You absolutely can abolish laws and replace them wholesale. That's what's happened in most EU countries as part of joining the EU. The UK abolished all of their death-penalty sentences, seperately legalised under-21, non-landowner, non-white and women votes, legalised gay civil-partnerships, legalised abortion, introduced and abolished conscription, conquered, lost and ceded control of other nations, introduced the police, the NHS, the intelligence agencies, mass-education, abolished the workhouses, introduced national insurance, the dole and disability allowance and made child labour and slavery illegal and all of these changes have required no civil war or an invasion.

Democracy isn't perfect, but there isn't a better form of government currently out there. Old and big companies are less agile than small ones - would you describe Microsoft or IBM as particularly agile? - and huge as they are, even the biggest companies are new and small fry compared with governments of even quite small countries. If Microsoft or IBM ran the UK or America I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do a better job of it.

@evildictaitor:

2 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

UIs get tinkered with and so do laws. But the guiding principles behind UI design and good laws are steadfast. Nobody has tried to abolish the good-old-fashioned button - they've just updated the UI to cope with touch-screens.

I think you are generalising a bit too much here. I could also claim that since the universe is made of atoms, everything is basically the same, the atoms are just stacked differently.

You absolutely can abolish laws and replace them wholesale. That's what's happened in most EU countries as part of joining the EU. The UK abolished all of their death-penalty sentences, seperately legalised under-21, non-landowner, non-white and women votes, legalised gay civil-partnerships, legalised abortion, introduced and abolished conscription, conquered, lost and ceded control of other nations, introduced the police, the NHS, the intelligence agencies, mass-education, abolished the workhouses, introduced national insurance, the dole and disability allowance and made child labour and slavery illegal and all of these changes have required no civil war or an invasion.

I said rarely, I didnt say never. And the death sentance is one that is indeed abolished, but it took a long time. The rest are amendments and new laws.

And EU law did not replace the law of the country. It's just another set of rules that has more weighting then the local law.

Democracy isn't perfect, but there isn't a better form of government currently out there. Old and big companies are less agile than small ones - would you describe Microsoft or IBM as particularly agile? - and huge as they are, even the biggest companies are new and small fry compared with governments of even quite small countries. If Microsoft or IBM ran the UK or America I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do a better job of it.

Democracy is flawed if you do not have a constitution to protect it's citizens, like in the USA. What you will see is that a non constitutional government will seize every oppertunity to expand it's power. Until the goverment can dictate every facet of our lives, compare this to a company wich cannot, it has to persuade us to be part of it's ecosystem. I can vote in a new government, but like I said old laws rarely get revoked, you need either a civil war (like in the east right now) or lose a war. To get out of the claws of a company, I just stop paying for their services.

They wouldnt do a better job, because they will lose their motivation to do a good job. Government gets their money no matter what, crisis or no crisis, there will always be government. So the financial stimulus to do a good job is gone. That's why they call the game the governments play politics and all they can achieve is more control, wich seems to be the answer to all their problems.

So, the free market to me, is more free then democracy. Who cares that google.com knows I have a limpy dick, the worst that they can do is send me a custom add. If government finds out that I have an ailment that I am not seeking treatment for, they can create the power to force me to undergo a medical treatment, because you know, they are there to protect me from myself, wich I am incapable to do on my own.

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

Democracy is flawed if you do not have a constitution to protect it's citizens, like in the USA.

Sorry, but that's just neo-colonial US bullcr4p. The constitution is just a part of the law - not the word of god sent down to Abraham Lincoln. Being part of the constitution doesn't make a law any more right, nor does it make it any less susceptible to change. The US constitution had much more to do with getting the states to cede power to a federal authority than setting out any magical principles that should forever go unchallenged.

I should also point out of course that the UK does have a constitution - although it doesn't exist in an easy to read document sitting in a museum. I should probably also point out that the USA isn't a democracy. It's a republic.

I can vote in a new government, but like I said old laws rarely get revoked, you need either a civil war (like in the east right now) or lose a war.

I've already pointed out that isn't true.

To get out of the claws of a company, I just stop paying for their services.

And to "get out of the claws" of a government you can just hop on a plane. You can even set up your own country if you want to - but just remember, the first rule of having a country is being able to defend your borders. So if you try and set up your own country on US soil you'll have to defend your borders against the US police that want their land back. Or you could do what I and my neighbours do. Pay the government a small amount of money each year, and in return they'll leave me alone to do business as I please, and they'll even chuck in some freebies like insurance against me getting ill, free tuition for my kids and some guys in cars with flashy lights on to keep out bandits that want to break into my house and steal my stuff. In return for letting them read my (frankly quite boring) emails they'll also stop psychopaths from shooting my kids of blowing up my wife - I think it's a good trade-off.

They wouldnt do a better job, because they will lose their motivation to do a good job. Government gets their money no matter what, crisis or no crisis, there will always be government. So the financial stimulus to do a good job is gone.

The key principle of the free-market is that if you work hard and make good decisions, you get rewarded. If you do badly or make bad decisions, you get punished. Most forms of government are as you describe and don't follow this rule. China's leaders are not punished for mistakes - and nor are North Korea's or Iran's. In the US and the EU where the people decide, those folk in power are under real jeopardy of being removed from power. Unlike the Middle East, though, we don't need to shoot bullets - we just need to fill in ballot papers. It's cheaper, it's cleaner and it involves far less innocents being killed in the streets. A win-all-round.

If you can think of a better way to run a country, I'd be happy to hear it. But someone needs to regulate businesses (the current financial crisis is a case in point that businesses' can't or won't regulate themselves) and we call that entity a government. Who decides who runs the government? You might not get much choice under a democracy, but that's a whole lot more choice than you'd get under anything else.

@blowdart: I would take issue, but comparing USA-USSR with regard to anything but warheads is silly.

I think our (US & UK) vector is slightly oriented toward eutopia rather than dystopia, just my Canadian $.02