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

wont work

when im arranging my terrorist activities i just go to hotmail or other email client write my mail then stick it in the draft folder, my evil colleague logs in reads the draft then deletes OMG's..
Unfortunately, you're uploading your nasty email to the internet (the hotmail site, in this case), and the government suddenly want to know why the hell you're wanting to know the code to the staff only entrance for GCHQ and what the hell this 'bomb' business is all about ;)
 
Joe Public need not fear in terms of liberties if they are not criminal.
What happens when the definition of what is criminal changes? A system that monitors everything is dangerous for that very reason. If I could know everything you're doing under the pretense that I want warning in case you do something criminal and I find out you're doing something (even something technically legal) that I totally disagree with, what happens next?
 
This has to be THE political nail in the coffin for Labour...

Can they really be this stupid?

It isn't stupid. People will complain for a few weeks, Labour will back off while implying that anyone who objects for any reason is guilty of something very bad.

Then they'll do it anyway, probably indirectly, once the fuss has died down.

They know that will work.

The main purpose of the modern Labour party is to increase the degree of routine surveillance and control of everyone by the state. That's why they will spend vast amounts of money on it rather than on anything beneficial to people in general.

For the first time ever, I am going to vote conservative.
 
Absolutely love the idea if it helps to catch terrorist scum like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copeland

and paedos. Joe Public need not fear in terms of liberties if they are not criminal.

Are you joking?

If not, would it be OK with you if I come round to your house and fit it with video cameras everywhere, feeding to the net, so that you are under constant surveillance at home? If that bothers you at all, you are by your own argument a criminal and probably a terrorist and/or paedophile.

"The innocent have nothing to fear" is something claimed by many tyrannies.
 
Has nothing to do with having something to hide, if you don't see that then you are so clearly missing the point.

Whether you vote labour or con is going to mean diddly squat to what changes in any case. If they decide to implement it, then it will happen regardless of who is in power. They're only puppets after all.

Government rely on our fears, after all our fear of 'factor X' and their 'solution X' is all that matters. The facts often speak very differently then the dribble that's fed to us through mainstream media and political puppets.
 
What happens when the definition of what is criminal changes?

I do see the definition of a terroist changing over the coming years from 'islamic extremists' to *anyone* who isn't aligned with the political will of that state or speaks out/protests against it.
 
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I do see the definition of a terroist changing over the coming years from 'islamic extremists' to *anyone* who isn't aligned with the political will of that state or speaks out/protests against it.

What you are implying is something different though. Yes a terrosit may be a criminal, but a criminal doesnt need to be a terrorist.
 
The government finds yet another IT-based project to waste billions of pounds on. It will cost far more than their initial projections, projects always do...
 
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What a scary scary state. What exactly does this involve?, would the system flag key words and such?, Jesus. I have nothing to hide, but if you think about it, you can't determine incoming communications. I can't dictate what will or will not land in my spam folder, nor what a friend will text me etcetc, I mean, you could be the most vigilant communicator, be extraordinarily 'safe' about who you message/email/where you post/what you say, and you're still going to be subject to things outside of your control (will it even be safe to post on OcuK in 20 years time?, will the aged racist posts held in the database be used as evidence against everyone who posted here? <-- tawdry example).
I'm quite left wing and do post on some protest/anti government sites, would this mean that I would be flagged as a threat?. Of course this will all be linked to proposed ID card information to create a nice little profile of benneh, that in turn will eventually serve to recoup the money outlaid for the project by selling sections of the profile to companies who deal in customer profiling (store cards etc).

Why on earth do we stand by and let things like this go ahead? (remembering of course that WE are paying for it?!!). England is becoming a very very scary place, and as a reasonably intelligent guy in his mid 20's I can't see any future for myself here. I probably sound like a nut, but who on earth would want to raise children in an Orwellian nightmare like the one proposed above?. Christ, I want to have freedom of speech and expression, not oppression and perpetual monitoring.

It's obvious what you're supposed to do regarding incoming communications that you think might not be approved by the authorities - do your duty and inform on the sender. Vigilance, citizen!

Things are likely to become more economically strained in the future, as new countries (China, India) become economically dominant and the UK's content-free economy runs out of famous names to sell to them. That sort of thing tends to promote extremism. Imagine a truly authoritarian tyranny that knows everywhere you go, everything you buy or sell, every non-verbal communication you send or receive and which watches you every minute of the day. They'll have no trouble finding people to publically torture and/or kill to maintain a suitable level of fear in everyone else. Every day, you can wonder if it will be you. Or your lover. Or perhaps one of your children.

But hey, you've got nothing to fear if you're innocent. Everyone knows that. The innocent have never had anything to fear from any regime, obviously. Of course, it couldn't happen here anyway because...err...King Arthur will return to stop it! With Aslan beside him! Obviously.
 
It's very short sighted for people to use the, "It's ok because if i'm not a criminal then I have nothing to worry about". We are living in a time where everything is fairly stable. Do you trust some government or person in power in 15 years time you don't yet know with ALL your information and the way you've lived your life so far, the contacts you have and people you are associated with in some vague way.

It's a very frightening prospect to think so many people are so quick to let other people who they dont personally know with all their information. You do realise that people in the government are just normal people with their own flaws, would you go blindly handing your information to a random christian on the street because christians are supposed to be trustworthy so therefore it's fine? Everything is open to abuse and exploitation.

If it was all paper based then it would still be a huge worry but we are in the electronic age and where people could photocopy paper and send it to people it wasn't so easily distributed. These days, things are held in massive databases, is easily searchable and very easily copied/distributed. One minor slip up by one person and everyones entire history/details is out there for everyone to see and use. Bit scary in my opinion.
 
What you are implying is something different though. Yes a terrosit may be a criminal, but a criminal doesnt need to be a terrorist.

It's very useful for a suitably controlling state to make them so. It gives the people another reason to be scared (terrorists could strike at any time!), positions the state as a courageous protector (protection from terrorist attacks, obvously) and provides a never-ending excuse for as much surveillance as possible, imprisonment without trial, all that sort of stuff (to enable the state to effectively protect the people against terrorism). If you disagree with any of it, you are therefore helping terrorism. If you commit any other crime, then you are weakening the state, therefore you are helping terrorism. Therefore criminals are terrorists.
 
of course (anthrax) if everyone started randomly (London) putting certain "keywords" into (allah) every digital (jihad) communication, it would render the (bomb) system pretty useless, since it would (ricin) flag up everything. ;)
The heuristics used to scan emails are pretty sophisticated, a post like yours would be dismissed.
 
Haven't we all seen enough movies, books and games that show where this sort of stuff could lead? Go back and check some out as a reminder why these things are bad regardless of whether you feel its ok now, doesn't mean it is or will be in the years to come!
 
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