Jap2Scrap

Hi

Obviously we're all appalled by last thursday's happenings in London and would wish nothing less than for it to never be allowed to happen again. There have been speculations on this BBS (by myself included) that the government could and would use this 'opportunity' to force through some bills that would normally be unsavoury to many people. Others on here see no problem with some restrictions in our freedom if they are made with the best intentions towards making our country a safer place to be.

We all would support measures that effectively nullified or reduced the terrorist threat, of that I have no doubt, however the latest proposal is another of those which sticks in the throat a bit, for me at least.

Currently, telecommunications records (phone calls/mobile calls/fax/data/sms/email) are only available to Police with the issue of a Court order/warrant. This procedure is in place to ensure that sufficient evidence is available to suggest that a person has acted or intends to act illegally before their private communications can either be intercepted or retrospectively investigated. It protects us from being routinely under investigation despite there being no evidence or obvious intent that we're breaking any laws.

Tony Blair and, more specifically, Charles Clarke this week plans to propose plans to make communications data freely available to the Police.

This puts me in somewhat of a dilemma; on the one hand I appreciate that anything that goes some way to catching terrorists or preventing further incidents is a good thing. OTOH I can't help feeling that this is just us slipping down one more rung into the depths of a totalitarian state.

Any comments?

Proposal mentioned here

Edcase

Things is, if you aren't a police 'target' and you don't have anything to hide, what have you got to worry about?

Think about how many emails and phone calls get made in a day.

Do you really think the police have to time to intercept *your* communications unless you are percieved by them for some reason to be a 'threat'?

OllyK

In theory, you are correct, however controls are in place, i.e. needing the authorisation of a magistrate / judge before certain actions occur to stop the Police from being able to just stroll in to any house they wish, without needing any grounds for doing so.

Until the day that every police officer is 100% trustworthy, never makes a mistake and is honest beyond reproach (I'm not suggesting the bulk aren't) I'd like to have some degree of protection to ensure that I don't get mistakenly dragged across the coals on some bent coppers whim or error. It's about sanity checking before action is taken that may have a significant impact on a person's life.

carl

Same old argument that's trotted out each time. It's about erosion of civil liberties. And everybody has something to hide. Do you password protect your PC? Would you let just anybody read your e-mails? Do you turn the encryption on on your Wi-Fi network?

We have paper recycling boxes that we put out in the street. I always shred all my bank statements, mortgage statements, phone bills, private communication, etc. before putting them in. I've nothing to hide, but I still don't want all and sundry looking at it.

MooseRacer

I'm quite happy for the police to look at my phone bills, emails etc. Why wouldn't I be?
As for the above (statements etc) obvisouly they are destroyed so that criminals can't use the information on them. That has nothing to do with police checking my phone bill.

Infringement of civil liberties my ****.

Jap2Scrap

But what's so wrong with the current method that means it needs changing? A known or suspected terrorist or someone with dodgy links to people who may be terrorists can be investigated with a warrant. The person under investigation does not need know that they are being investigated so why should this method be deemed unsatisfactory?

Edcase

Sorry but you can't compare shredding bank statements that sit out in your bin on the street to the police being able to intercept communications!!!

Police aren't interested in if you shagged your mates girlfriend, they want to know who is planning on blowing up innocent civilians or smuggling tonnes of cocaine.

They simply dont have the manpower to deal with anything other than concrete leads found from scanning billions of bytes of data using sophisticated methods as well as key words etc.

It simply doesn't affect 99% of the population.

Edcase

Its just another layer of red tape, protocol and paperwork to slow the process.

Jap2Scrap

Ok, that's an opinion, but that red-tape is there to protect everybody from over-zealous Police working to tight budgets and performance related career opportunities.

I'm sure many people who champion this idea would also wish to be treated fairly should they come under investigation for ANYTHING from requiring an NIP be served within 14 days to getting their solicitor or telephone call should they be detained for any reason.

The red-tape is there for everybody's benefit.

The argument about the amount of Police paperwork is a seperate issue altogether. We're talking about fundemental rights, not writer's cramp for PC's.

Holy Ghost

**

the problem with this argument is who's to say that the police won't just start random intercepts as well - backed up, of course, by the might of GCHQ and the co-operation of the NSA.

it's the thin end of the wedge because governments will always seek to maximise their power over peoples' lives.

i say streamline the warrant process instead. have judges on a 24-hour call-out roster, able to issue warrants on request in double-quick time. make the system work harder to protect us rather than simply degrade our rights to privacy.

carl

Well I'm not. Maybe that makes me a dangerous terrorist

Edcase

Yes but we are also talking about catching terrorists not a speeding offence or dealing a bit of weed. My concern here is that everyone arguing against the measures are not comparing apples with apples!

Terrorist threats needs to be dealt with as quickly and effectively as possible to stop tragedies like we have already seen happen, and police simply wont just get some concrete info and then be able make arrests, they will often need to follow lots of leads, often coded or in a different language, track down people who may not even be UK registered / nationals etc. etc. so anything that can expedite that process must be a priority?

Edcase

LOL, I don't think you understand the scale of the operation??

Just how overworked the entire system already is??

Your argument just isn't workable in 'real life'

Edcase

carl

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin.

Would you accept living in a perfectly safe totalitarian state?

Jap2Scrap

I can't really argue that without going over what I have already. I can understand why your opinion is different to mine and I'm sympathetic towards it (hence the 'dilemma' in the thread title) I just have concerns born of the fact that this government and Police force have proved themselves unreliable historically with respect to terrorist issues (amongst others). Guildford 4 anyone? Giving them more of a free reign without a judge/magistrate to back them up could be extremely damaging.

My main point is that they are able to intercept the communications of suspected terror groups/personnel now so why the need for the change? I'm not buying the 'speeding up the process' line because it need not take days/weeks to sign a warrant. If it does, there are other ways of speeding up that process.

MooseRacer

"Would you accept living in a perfectly safe totalitarian state?"

Maybe not, but I couldn't give two hoots if PC Plod wants to amuse himself by seeing I rang my Mum yesterday.

Edcase

would you accept your family being blown to pieces because the police were not able to find out about planned terrorist attacks early enough?

because I'm certain that the unfortunate people caught up in last week's attack never thought it would happen to them either.

there were also significant protocol / communication / redtape issues which compounded the North American security services to not react to 9/11 in time.

Brendan Hughes

Actually you are probably also talking about dealing a bit of weed. Although there is special legislation for terrorism, you'll find that much of the authorisation will be permitted for "serious (organised) crimes", which will include people and drug trafficking. Particularly as there is now an interest in how terrorists finance themselves, which includes the above two methods.

You'd still be safe with the speeding offence though

Edcase

Yes I understand and agree, however, it goes back to the resource issue, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the amount of phone and data communications that happen even just within mainland britain in one day is mind blowing. There just isnt the resource to deal with anything but very significant threats and operations....terrorism, murder, significant volumes of class a drug trafficking...

Dream Weaver

But what if you are discussing terrorism/bombings and you make a joke about something to do with what happened - that keyword is picked up, and the next thing you know your mum is arrested as a suspect terrorist, its happened in the US.

I'm not bothered either way, I would prefer my freedom but the way the UK is going freedom will be gone in 10 years. I've just spent a week in Spain and their liberal way of life is a breath of fresh air compared to here, and life is much cheaper there as well.

IMO you will never ever stop terrorism, whatever the govn't do now will NOT stop it happeneing again - ID cards, phone monitoring, toilet useage monitoring, whatever crap idea they come up with will never ever stop the threat of it happening again.

If the attacks had been in Manchester, the gov't wouldn't have been so worried, but because it was in London we will all pay the price now.

carl

TBH this all sounds too much like Minority Report for my comfort.

Leslie

I think that both Jap2Scrap and OllyK have a perfectly vaild point. At the moment the security services are entilted to tap phones etc with a warrant from a magistrate. This has been possible for a very long time and a case can easily be made for that.

The worry is that giving free reign to look at anyone's communications at any time can lead to your private life being laid bare to any of the authorities whenever they feel like it and build up a total record of our lifestyle. The Government have already stated that they could recover some of the proposed identity card costs by selling information to firms for their use!

Living a blameless life still does not make me feel better about that sort of freedom with regard to my private infomation being generally available. The fact that it is an erosion of civil rights is indefensible.

No matter how much you feel you may be able to trust the present government with all that information, there is no way you can predict that a future administration would not take full advantage of the loss of our inbuilt protection of our own rights fought for for all those years,and creating a dictatorial police state.

Les

carl

As Tony Benn said on Question Time last week, our rights are our rights. We own them. The government are elected by us to represent them. They don't license our rights to us as they see fit.

mart360

to mooseracer and any other of the "isnt a pc state wonderfull" posters...


if your arguement is so wonderfull and valid, try this..

walk into any police station in the country and ask to see transcripts of inteviews phonecalls and other documentation and see where it gets you..

they will quite happily trot out data protection act and other spiel to prevent you from seeing data, despite the freedom of information act.

you must be well suckered in by billys spiel if you accept all he says blithley..

when it is a true two way issue then fine but until then, its MY right to privacy,

not billy liars or any of his jackbooted accomplices.

its just another way of control,



how far down the road does he have to go before the word dictatorship is used!!!


M

Angry

Well Bush strapped the same thing on the US public after 9/11, the Patriot Act. Love the name, Patriot Act, like it'd be unpatriotic not to support it.

I'm not surprised his little lapdog wants it for us too.

Most of our electronic communications are routed through Echelon* anyway, all this does is make it much easier for the state to access the information.

To EdCase: What do I have to hide? Only my private life, which is all to easily destroyed with what is proposed(along with ID cards and GPS boxes in the car)

*The MASSIVE US listening station slap bang in the middle of the UK

boomer

...of course, if i were a terrorist i would use a PAYG mobile bought on a stolen ID (as per Trevor McD Tonight), and surf the web and send e-mails at Internet cafes (for cash) - thus no amount of tracking or snooping would help.

Or i could even use my existing real ID, and my true passport and driving licence and birth certificate etc., and still be a suicide nutter who could be totally identified on paper and yet splattered in a million body parts after my waistcoat bomb went off - thus snooping would save NO lives.

Three words, "Agenda", "Government" and "Hidden"!!!!

mb