Govenment to spend £12 billion spying on our Email & Internet Browsing Habits

I'm not worried, they'll just lose all the information they've found.
magick said:
Make no mistake 10 years from now they'll be putting RFID chips in people. This is all part of bigger stratergy that's *slowly* being rolled out so as not to generate to much protest. It's called the tip-toe tyrany.
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This is why elections are such a useful thing! Just vote conservative and we won't have to put up with Labour anymore.
 
I can understand spending 12 Billion of TAX PAYERS money to spy on people, because this will catch all the scum of the world including;

Terrorists
Peado's
E-Criminals


However, it kind of seems a little excessive. I mean a guy may get caught with pics of kids on his PC and a Terrorist may be prevented attacking somewhere in London, but 12 Billion?


I could be wrong but I am sure a system can be found/developed for a little less that will do the same job. Surely some of this money could go on something a little more deserving, like the NHS or an equivalent national scheme for the good of everyone?

I dunno, just seems a bit much to be spending (tax payers again) for the ability to "Spy" on everyone and make us more of a Nanny State.
 
How do you know that the Tories wont do the same?

Admittedly, as much as I dislike the Tories; Labour are falling incredibly out of favour with me at the moment. Likewise, Boris isn't doing too bad a job as Mayor so I'm definitely more inclined to give the blues a chance this time around.
 
Nobody knows if the Tories would do the same, so it IS a bit of a gamble, but if they had any common sense, they'd look at just why Labour are so incredibly unpopular, and avoid the same pitfalls.

Besides, when they get into power, they won't have much in the bank to spend. :/
 
Knubje said:
I can understand spending 12 Billion of TAX PAYERS money to spy on people, because this will catch all the scum of the world including;

Terrorists
Peado's
E-Criminals
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I don't think it will catch the above. Do you seriously believe spending £12 billion pounds will eradicate Terroists, Peados and E-Criminals? No they'll spend the money and not much will change then they'll come up with an even more intrusive big brother policy to 'protect us'. And before we know it we're living in an Orwellian hell hole.
 
magick said:
I don't think it will catch the above. Do you seriously believe spending £12 billion pounds will eradicate Terroists, Peados and E-Criminals? No they'll spend the money and not much will change then they'll come up with an even more intrusive big brother policy to 'protect us'. And before we know it we're living in an Orwellian hell hole.
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Yep. Spying on us won't catch the "world's criminals" as we have no jurisdiction in another sovereign state. All we can do is pass on information if we obtain it. Such a scheme will only be used against us. It is eroding our personal freedoms and I will not allow that to happen.

In fact, I know it's a throw-away vote but I could vote Lib. Dem. in 2009 as I agree with most of their policies. I only really doubt their experience, but it may be a gamble we need to take. Although say that, the Tories do seem to be on the right path with a lot of their stances.
 
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Yet another reason to avoid BT as an ISP...then again, if they put these monitoring systems in telephone exchanges, we're pretty much stuffed.
 
Berserker said:
Sounds like an extension of ECHELON to me. I'm sure the mere fact that I've mentioned that word will be sufficient to attract both their attention and the attention of our lizard overlords.

Two problems - (1) where are they getting the money, and (2) at best it'll be keyword-based, like the evil Phorm. In fact, maybe that's why Phorm is getting such an easy ride - wouldn't be hard to adapt the Phorm system and it'd cost an awful lot less than £12bn.
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Phorm isn't keyword based, it basically looks at everything you do and stores it for a time in a data centre outside of this country, then serves you adverts based on your complete browsing habits.
 
I'll find a laptop with all your browsing information on the tube in the future then. You best all be careful or I will find out what you look at ;)
 
magick said:
I don't think it will catch the above. Do you seriously believe spending £12 billion pounds will eradicate Terroists, Peados and E-Criminals? No they'll spend the money and not much will change then they'll come up with an even more intrusive big brother policy to 'protect us'. And before we know it we're living in an Orwellian hell hole.
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Its a complete fallacy to suggest this kind of spying will catch Criminals or Terrorists - they will simply resort to encypting all their communications and the only people GCHQ will be able to spy on is the common man.

Do you think they don't already know this?

This is all about control of the population - not the terrorists.
 
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magick said:
I don't think it will catch the above. Do you seriously believe spending £12 billion pounds will eradicate Terroists, Peados and E-Criminals? No they'll spend the money and not much will change then they'll come up with an even more intrusive big brother policy to 'protect us'. And before we know it we're living in an Orwellian hell hole.
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Thats kinda what I mean. Yes granted the 12 Bill may catch a few wrong do'ers etc, which is great.

I can also imagine everyone gettnig owned for piracy which would also be quite good :rolleyes:

But surely the impact it will have there would be quite insignficant if the money could be put to a much better "greater good".

Agreed, all these policies and ideas being drawn up to monitor us constantly is getting a bit out of hand and this 12 billion is a good example!
 
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being actively watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork" - 1984

Thought it was an apt quote...
 
Conventional wisdom,

its better for 100 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man sent to jail.

Labor wisdom,

its better to trample on the privacy of millions than let 1 guilty man go free.
 
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