back to article Hoon: Not building überdatabase would be terrorist licence to kill

Transport secretary Geoff Hoon said last night that if the government is not able to harvest details of all internet communications, society will have granted terrorists a licence to kill. Appearing on BBC One's Question Time*, the journeyman minister was asked by Liberal Democrat MP and fellow panellist Julia Goldsworthy how …

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  1. Dave

    wotta

    twot

  2. dreadful scathe
    Joke

    prison?

    so when we are living in a virtual prison camp with our every move watched and recorded - it will all be worth it because our civil liberty of "not being killed" is being protected. Its the only way to foster a happy nation where all terrorism will completely dissapear ! (probably overnight if they restrict us enough)

  3. TimNevins
    Thumb Down

    Future changes planned....

    Tired of physical spousal abuse or child abuse?

    Fed up of neighbors leaving kids under the age of 14 home alone?

    Do not fret. The goverment plans to install cameras in every household to prevent this.

    if you do not support this measure it means you support wife battering and kid neglect.

    I posted this a few years ago as a spoof only to find out the goverment has already introduced last year for battered spouses returning to home.

  4. John Imrie
    Black Helicopters

    The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist

    Er, not really.

    The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a cop,

  5. Alan Fisher

    Hmmm

    what can one say to this except that it pretty much confirms the worst fears voiced on El Reg?

    It's what we've been saying all along, they'll take away our rights to 'protect' us....i'd laugh if it weren't so scary!

    Time for the Guy Fawkes mask icon, I think

  6. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Thumb Down

    Government + IT Security = Joke

    Sorry Mr Hoon, but just 'cos you understand the concept of an inbox and your browser history, this is many, many times the order of magnitude more complex. The government have proved time and again, they simply cannot be trusted to look after our data and not leave it open to abuse.

    For flips sake, some local council setup CCTV and 12 months later two operatives were up in court for spying on naked women in their homes. I have lost count of the number of government departments that have let some muppet "borrow" data on a laptop/usb key and then lost the bloody thing on a train or in a cab, leaving kids at risk from pervs and service personnel at risk from terrorists.

    Sorry Hoon, but the first thing the terrorists will do, when this thing goes live is pay some script kiddie to get them access, let's face it if EDS build it the security will be laughable or they will find a way to get someone into a position to extract data from secure terminals.

  7. Dave Ross

    Another..

    nail in the coffin of civil liberty.

    "hoonatic" we need to get rid of.

    glimpse under the skin of how our politicians really think.

    We have nothing to fear except politicians themselves.

  8. Si
    Unhappy

    Totally unworkable?

    I really cannot see how they can even consider spying on all internet communications, the scope is too big to be practicable, and any terrorist with even a modicum of tech savvy will be encrypting his data, sending it via an encrypted connection (possibly with some onion routing) and connecting via someone else's open Wi-Fi network.

    No amount of deep packet scanning will break the encryption, unless GCHQ know back doors to every encryption method out there. So really all this system will do is spy on law abiding citizens while the alleged armies of terrorists out there continue plotting our downfall.

    Labour are really taking the piss now with all this 1984 shit.

  9. Archie Woodnuts
    Thumb Down

    Requisite

    Orwell quote.

    "There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

    I, for one, welcome our insidious overlords.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Spineless Jacquifish

    I wish we had a government with a backbone, it seems they are spineless wonders. The smallest threat causes them to throw out civil liberties and they conflate opponents with terrorists, so their judgement is broken. It's also clear from Hoons comments that he wants to monitor more than just the call record and internet connection logs.

    Gutless spineless wonders that are doing the job of the terrorists for them. The aim of terrorists isn't to kill a few people, it's to induce fear. Killing a fraction of the people who die from choking on food does not serve their purpose. If they can induce a panic reaction from a hysterical minister then they achieve their purpose of inducing fear.

    Here the jellyfish in power, at the first threat of attack, they remove basic rights.

    Get a backbone!

  11. Man Outraged

    Freedom vs Security

    Benjamin Franklin:

    Those that would give up essential liberty in pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security

    Man Outraged:

    If those in Government who know bugger all about the internet continue down their ill-informed fear-driven path towards totalitarianism soon enough I won't be able to post this shit without getting arrested.

  12. Geoff Mackenzie

    Biggest civil liberty of all

    my arse. More people are killed in the UK by bees than terrorists.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MI5 spies on opponents of Gordon Brown

    The French Secret Service has been caught spying on politicians and trying to influence elections by leaking bad information to the press. President Sarkozy is suing the former head of the Secret Service over the scandal:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7675102.stm

    This is no different from MI5 spying on opponents of Gordon Brown to try to keep him in power. It the exact same thing that will inevitably happen if we remove the checks and balances on the security services. They will keep the person who gives them most power in Number 10.

    There are no superheroes, there are no perfect people, we put checks and balances at every stage of everything because people are imperfect.

    Jacqui Smith thinks that we're all potential terrorists and therefore should be monitored without specific suspicion. I think the man doing the monitoring may be the terrorist, who ensures his cronies stay in power.

    This is what the French example shows, a security service out of control trying to subvert the democracy.

    /rant

  14. Master Baker
    Thumb Up

    Rammstein

    Hoon reminds me of an opening-line from one of Rammsteins tracks :

    "Ein kliner minge.... slurp..."

    Anyway, I presume that the terrorist database will be used to track only muslims anyway. How many are there in the UK at the moment? 2 million? 3? So it won't be too big after all.

  15. Charlie
    Paris Hilton

    What a load of arse

    It's almost complete bullsh1t to say that the biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist.

    What about free speech, privacy, right to assemble, right to worship, peacful protest, voting, trial by jury, etc?

    Hoon is a complete goon who seems to be vindicating all the notions that power crazed governments almost cannot be stopped once they get started on the tools of control bandwagon.

    For the most part, good old-fashioned police/intelligence work busts these terror conspiracies. Tipoffs, tailing, eavesdropping and so forth. Once they are nicked their laptops and mobile phones generally give up all the evidence of who they have been in contact with. Very few of these guys are 'professional' terrorists and don't have the field craft or concentration to cover their tracks.

    Given the use of anti terror law to freeze Icelandic bank assets there is no doubt that this mega database will eventually be put to use against benefit fraud and parking fines.

    Remember, authority figures never admit errors and if you aren't for them then you must be against them!

    Paris because I think I'd be happier living there.

  16. Tom
    Unhappy

    Not good enough.

    Why is Hoon not advocating saving our lives by photocopying all of our snail mail too?

    I won't feel safe until that happens.

  17. Adrian Jooste
    Black Helicopters

    We are so boned...

    Finally we get a little insite into the minds of these loons. Can you imagine the stuff they talking about and considering implementing behind closed doors? I think we would all use our fight or flight instinct. Unfortunately I see most of society embracing the former whilst clutching the latest celebrity gossip magazine and an apple product.

    Can someone tell me why Madonna and her bullshit is on the front page of most papers and this is hardly reported, if it is at all?

    They have so much control over us already it's scary.

  18. TeeCee Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Not much of a choice, is it?

    Being killed by a terrorist or having to listen to Wacky Jaqui and Hoonearthlistenstothisgit pontificating.

    I mean, if it was quick with a big bomb there's no contest, but if it involved being bludgeoned repeatedly around the neck with a machete for the cameras I'd have to think a bit about this one.

  19. Christian Cook
    Coat

    Civil Liberty order of preference

    "The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist," the minister concluded, finger wagging.

    He's got that slightly wrong. The biggest civil liberty is not being chastised by a confused wildebeeste. Then it's not being cavity searched by ant eaters. Then it's not being crushed by a falling Welsh caravan. Then it's not smelling of bricks. And then it is not being killed by terrorists, closely followed by not being molested by a long reach stapler.

  20. Nomen Publicus
    Thumb Down

    Hoon a Dr Seuss character?

    "The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist," the minister concluded"

    B*ll*cks, one is more likely to be killed by an asteroid hit than by a terrorist (look it up, the maths proves it!) If the number of deaths prevented is the most important aspect, why isn't the £12 billion being spend on road safety?

    When, in order to detect a vanishingly small number of terrorists, the entire population must be monitored, the government is doing it WRONG. That £12 billion should be spend on proper policing and security, not wasted on some IT boondoggle.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    "quite a long way, actually."

    Not as far as not funding such people in the first place though hey tinkerbell.

    http://www.officialconfusion.com/77/mastermind/aswat/aswatloftusfoxnews.wmv

    Quite frankly I just dont believe a damn thing they say they are doing/using in the name of fighting terrorists, because just about everything they have come up with has been used to lock up and/or quiet normal law abiding citizens.

    *\. Cleaning my coat, because even a small clip from foxnews makes me feel dirty.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Question Time Extra

    If you thought Hoon was bad, check out the two fucktards on Question Time extra.

    They trotted out every brain dead cliché that you could possibly imagine.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00f5f61/Question_Time_Extra_16102008/

    Time: 13:30 onwards

    I can't believe that people this stupid are allowed to roam free without supervision.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Which do I do?

    Emigrate or join the resistance?

    I keep seeing paralells with somewhere in Europe 75 years ago. A very few people there fought it but most people joined in happily.

    Mine's the one with the yellow star on the pocket...

  24. Alan Fisher

    The IRA

    were, statistically speaking, a much bigger threat to the UK than AL-Madeup ever have been yet we still had <i>some</i> civil liberties under Thatcher.....why such a big kerfuffle now?? We're used to terrorism in this country and dealt quite well with it in the 80's and early 90's.....

    yet none of this stuff would have happened back then....

  25. Simon Young
    Thumb Down

    Cheerio

    I am leaving the country soon. What's the point of having a database to fight terrorists if Osama Bin Laden is not on it but I am! Cheerio

  26. Shagrat

    Bees?

    My god, does Jacqui Smith not know this?

    We need to get cameras setup in every beehive to find out which of the bees are the terrorist threat so we can stop these poison based assasinations before they get out of hand.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Wrong answer

    This just proves how disconnected from the reality the people in the govenrment are. Me, personally, I would rather risk getting blown up by a terrorist than being constantly spied on.

    I think that where we err is that we shouldn't try to eliminate risk at any cost. Instead, we should focus on minimising risk as much as possible while being careful not to lose our way of life. If we keep going down this road, then you can consider that the terrorists have already won.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist"...

    Saw this last night and just thought "Hoon, you really are a tosser". I'm ashamed that these people are in government. In 2010 I'll be voting SNP with a clear conscience - it's worth the financial risk.

  29. dervheid
    Thumb Down

    What Utter...

    utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter BULLSHIT!

    NuLabour have completely outdone themselves this time.

    Move over Jaqui, there's a new nutter on the block.

    Whacky Jaqui, meet Hoon the Loon!

    All your freedoms, privacies, data and communications are belong to us!

    Papers Please, Citizen.

  30. Mo

    So, what's next?

    Terrorism is the current hot potato killer issue.

    What's next?

    How ridiculous does it get before people start to say “actually, hold on… this is entirely disproportionate?” I know it IS disproportionate now, but it's still an (admittedly vocal) minority actually saying as much. Perhaps everybody should be monitored to ensure that errant pedestrians can't stray onto a busy road and get themselves knocked down? Perhaps police officers should be stationed at the doors to every local pub to ensure that drink driving doesn't occur? Perhaps all kitchen knives should be licensed to qualified “home chefs” to ensure that knife crime is kept to a minimum?

    Sorry, Mr Hoon; you were an idiot in defence, and you're still an idiot now. The biggest civil liberty of all is to live without repression, either from terrorists OR from the Government. At the end of the day, if you can't have that, it doesn't matter who's doing the repressing, as many other governments of dubious repute across the world have demonstrated.

  31. Christian Cook
    Flame

    And another thing...

    If he wants to start throwing calm debate to the wind and get all emotive then how's about this...

    In the two World Wars, millions of people gave up their lives to save our freedom and civil liberties. Now this government are giving up our freedom and civil liberties due to the misguided belief it might save a few people here and there.

    They are spitting on the graves of everyone who gave their life to defend democratic freedom.

  32. rickee

    V

    Ah time to send out those Guy Fawkes me thinks

  33. Paul Murphy
    Thumb Down

    A(nother) quote

    Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

    from Hermann Goering (http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp)

    Just in case you might think that this will never happen here.

    ttfn

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    He's completely out of touch with reality

    I'm more likely to die crossing the road than by terrorist action.

    The aim of terrorism is to create a climate of fear, but why bother - our glorious leaders are doing it for them, whilst running around screaming "The sky is falling in!"

    Geoff and Jacqui, it's people like you who are going to force me to not vote Labour for the first time in my life. You really need to step back and look at yourselves from an outside perspective. Perhaps then you will realise just how stupid and dangerous you look to the rest of us...

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    embarassed

    I thought Hoon looked embarassed when he said this. He is a minister and can either tow the party line or lose his job. He thought of an argument went with it and then looked like a twat and I think he knows it.

  36. Mark

    Kick up the arse is what they need

    From the BBC summary:

    Geoff Hoon says he is prepared to go "quite a long way" with civil liberties to "stop terrorists killing people".

    Fine HE can go a long way with HIS civil liberties.

    Stop spending mine.

  37. Jamie
    Linux

    Banging on my drum again

    I have always stated that the only good and honest politician is dead. they are not too be trusted, and will do anything to protect themselves while selling everyone else up the river.

    You will protect my life from terrorist by taking away all my rights which is all the terrorist want to do, thus letting them win anyway.

    Too bad Guy Fawkes did not succeed.

    Only thing scarier than a terrorist is the nutjobs currently in Westmister.

  38. Nigel Wright

    The behaviour of this government...

    ...scares me more than terrorists do,

    - Wanton wasting of taxpayers money on IT schemes that inevitably fail.

    - Careless losses of our personal data on a weekly basis.

    - Waging wars against sovereign nations

    - Deporting citizens to face American military courts.

    - Condoning the detention of foregin nationals and our own citizens in military prison camps without trial or charge.

    - Allowing black/secret flights into and out of the country carrying prisoners abducted by the CIA from foreign nations (yes I have seen the unmarked aircraft at Prestwick tucked away in a corner)

    - Proliferation of CCTVs in urban environments without any public consultation exercise.

    - Proliferation of road "safety" cameras and automatic number plate recognition without any public consultation exercise.

    ....and on it goes.

    This government threatens my liberty, my freedom of movement, my right to free speech in public places and my right to privacy.

    This makes Erik Honeker and the former DDR look like a school playground in comparison.

  39. Andy
    Flame

    It's not the terrorists they'll be monitoring

    It's you and me.

    Because as soon as this goes live, all the tech-savvy terrorists will be communicating via twitter.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    news flash

    Life is worth losing to maintain freedom.

    We lost millions to get here and now we're gonna sh1t it all away.

    Of course the government wants it that way, the people have way too many f---ing rights, I mean damn we could strike, we can talk to people in other countries, we can insult them, we can spread s--t about them, we can be mean, nasty and anti-social.

    And the thing is, people are dumb. They are, they're just f---ing stupid. People can get convinced that there's an invisible man in the sky. They think they have rights. Of course they only have rights until someone else decides to take them away, and s--t the government can just whip away your rights any time they like, they barely need reasons beyond "s--- we need a new scapgoat, whose it gonna be today, we already killed all the brown people, s--t I guess we'll need to kill the yellow basterds now instead."

    Ahhh f--- it we don't really have any rights, never have never will, the only choice we have is when to die, and lets face it they want to make learning about topping yourself illegal too as apparently only the invisible man in the sky has choice over that.

    Ho hum.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Somebody must have voted for him....

    Once again 'Buff' Hoon proves that in politics being a tw@ is not a barrier to success.

  42. Craig Roberts

    I agree..

    Can we have a Guy Fawkes / V icon please...? :)

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @Master Baker

    The line in question is actually "Ein kleiner Mensch stirbt nur zum Schein", or "A little man just pretends to die". Still appropriate, but perhaps not in the way you meant.

    Flames, but just 'cause it's angry music.

  44. Nic Brough

    Hoon Loon?

    I watched it last night. I scared the crap out of the cat yelling "liar" at the screen.

    His answers about how it was going to work were either the result of an appallingly inaccurate technical briefing, or he was knowingly lying to us. Even when the other panellists diplomatically (and accurately) told him he was wrong, he wouldn't give in.

    Either way, he's not fit to have any more political power than my cat (she used to like watching the BBC reports on Humphrey and Socks, but that's about it)

  45. TMS9900
    Coat

    Welcome to the pleasure dome...

    I propose we rename our country to something more fitting, more appropriate. United Kingdom seems so... 20th Century.

    I know, I've got it: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

    Got a nice ring to it, don't you think?

  46. Ash
    Thumb Up

    @Rammstein

    I think you mean "Ein kleiner Mensch ...stirbt (nur zum Schein)" (A small person pretends to die) from "Spieluhr" (Music box)

    Maybe this is the only way to escape the system? Fake your own death?

    Well done for being insightful and ignorrant at the same time!

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    No change there then..

    Glad to see that TCH (That C*** Hoon - the moniker he earned as secretary of state for defense) is speaking true to form. He still needs a damn good beating with a cluebat.

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Buff Hoon strikes again.

    The day I take anything old 'Buff' Hoon says as gospel is the day they come to take me to the funny farm. He was a crap minister and is a crap MP in one of the crappiest governments in the long and crap history of the dis-United King-dumm of Greater Crappier.

    Orf with his head!

    I've said it before and I'll say it again. We need a revolution do do away with the lot of them politico classes. The bloodier and merciless the better.

    AC cos the metropolitan death squads still have lots of ammo left after Cressida Dik's Brazillian Wax...er Wack.

  49. Dunstan Vavasour
    Flame

    Freedom or Power over Circumstances

    This is the worst form of sophistry, and gets right up my nose - the use of "Freedom" when you mean "Power over Circumstances".

    We hear it all the time: Freedom from poverty etc., but describing "not being blown up" as a civil liberty plumbs new depths of disingenuousness. You might as well ban motor vehicles and claim you are enhancing the civil liberty of not being mown down by a juggernaut.

    Are these people wicked liars, using fear of terrorism as a premise for systematic repression, or dangerous fools who believe what they're saying?

  50. Mike Banahan

    @Charlie

    "Given the use of anti terror law to freeze Icelandic bank assets there is no doubt that this mega database will eventually be put to use against benefit fraud and parking fines"

    Charlie mate - that's why they are doing it in the first place. It's nothing to do with terrorism it's to do with tax collection, benefit fraud, money laundering (in distant 3rd place) and then anything else they can do to stop us doing what they don't like.

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