Investigatory Powers Bill: As supported by world's most controlling men This morning in London, on billboards and in print, the world's most authoritarian leaders are "endorsing" the UK's Investigatory Powers Bill. The "New" Snoopers' Charter would make the UK "a world leader in surveillance," according to the Don't Spy on Us coalition, a collective of civil liberties organisations behind the …
We must remain in Europe because we cannot trust our own government as a whole...
When our home secretary wants us to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, where we were a signatory, it makes things very scary... and makes you wonder who we have in power,
I am just glad the cabinate is at least split over the issue, if a little shocked she wasn't imediately asked to resign after making the call... In my view even making the suggestion shows she is unfit for duty.
Keep up the good work. Naturally I can't speak for the rest of the Register community but I am 100% behind this campaign. The volume on this issue needs to be turned up massively so people really start to understand what is at stake... and I think this is a great start.
Best of luck.
I read this too quickly and read:
people really start to understand what is at stake... and I think this is a great start.
as
people behind this can be burnt at the stake... and I think this is a great start.
A bit far but it's a bonfire of rights. With these kind of powers, the met would have been able to investigate all those families who were embarrassing it from afar rather than having to send in undercover police people.
At least we can all be on the list for a damn good reason now. Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
Its the "ordinary people" I feel sorry for. If we techies feel sufficiently motivated if/when this goes through we'll be Tor'ing, VPN'ed up and using cruft generators whilst they get arrested for joking about bombing an airport in private 1:1 chats.
She was as less use than a Braille sundial.
I got back a very long reply, but forwarded from home office, without her reading it. The letter I sent was in good time before the vote beseeching her to vote against and she apparently didn't read most of it - decided it was about this and forwarded a standard response. She abstained and didn't even take the trouble to lie about her reasons for so doing.
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I had a similar standard reply - probably the same boilerplate - from Damian Hinds. It's infuriating.
There really ought to be some way to force these b'stards to actually listen to the wishes of the people they allegedly represent - and if they don't know what those wishes are, then to take the trouble to find out.
As I've said before, this costly exchange of privacy for the illusion of security needs to be put to a public referendum.
> There really ought to be some way to force these b'stards to actually listen to the wishes of the people they allegedly represent - and if they don't know what those wishes are, then to take the trouble to find out.
Well for starters, you could go and see your MP in person at the surgery they are required to hold in their constituancy - much harder to ignore you and just forward boilerplate replies when it's a face-face discussion. Also, in a world where most "don't care", and most of the rest don't care beyond firing off an email, turning up ion person will have more impact on their view of the important of your views.
But, the big problem is who your MP is. For a long time our local MP was a "career politician" climbing the greasy pole (and is now a Lord). As such, he rarely if ever worked against the official line of his party (Labour). Since most of my letters to him were against the then Labour government position, I didn't tend to get any replies at all other than acknowledgements and standard replies forwarded from other departments that usually didn't address the question(s) I asked. As such, I did sometimes wonder what was the point of having an MP when they had no interest in views of their constituents unless those views were in line with the party policy.
My current MP ... not quite sure yet, but looks like being much the same.
Sadly, not voting is NOT voting no!
This is the biggest problem in modern politics. I despise practically every "representative" that I've been offered for the last 3 parliaments. I don't trust any of them. I don't believe any of them will represent my interests in any way.
Not voting at all however achieves exactly the same, no representation. It's a nasty vicious circle. Short of running for office myself - something I consider myself entirely unfit to do - I have no idea where you even start to find a candidate that's worth the time of day.
Eric King, director of the Don't Spy on Us coalition, said: "We have been talking to all of the parties, our members include many cross-party organisations, and we're very enthused by the work that Kier Starmer [Labour MP] and Joanna Cherry [SNP MP] are doing. We hope there's going to be more opposition to what is a bill that we're still very concerned about."
Unfortunately, our duly elected representatives have already had the opportunity to vote against this legislation, but chose instead to abstain, so effectively endorsing it by tacit consent.
"putting forward practice that is likely to be unlawful, and not just in a couple of areas, but some of the core areas of the bill," Eric King
Well given there is little in the bill that isn't already being done (under the 1984 Telecomms Act), either current practice and hence what is contained in the bill is unlawful or not; "likely" does not really come into it...
'Rolling" in his grave? Well I guess 'spinning' has a new and different meaning when it comes to politics, thanks to the saintly Alistair Campbell... Whose government did read 1984 as a guide book, in addition to Machiavelli. Given that Orwell (a Blairite in his own way :-)) was at least as cynical as Machiavelli I rather hope he would have weighed the possibility that his work would benefit instead of discomfit the would be tyrant.
Now I shall have to find a biography or interview to confirm or deny what Orwell felt about 1984... Or await the better educated commentator.
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