Paris terror attacks: ISPs face pressure to share MORE data with governments Government ministers from European states, who met in Paris today in the wake of the atrocious attacks that stunned the French capital's population last week, have called on internet firms to do a better job of cooperating with spooks and police to help them fight terrorism. In a joint statement (PDF) from a number of Europe's …
I'm sure its just as effective as marching...
To the governments of the world:
No more data sharing. Snowden did not do a bad thing. You use terror in an attempt to manipulate public opinion far more frequently than those you call terrorists. You have done far more to destroy my freedom than any Islamic terrorist. There are many murders, every day - they are all tragic, not just those politically motivated. You can't beat terrorists, except by ignoring them. I shall ignore you and your requests for more power and encourage others to do the same, as I would the Islamists.
To the security services:
A bad reputation and lack of trust is a very difficult thing to shake. The only way to protect your reputation, is not by covering up your wrong-doings, but by only doing right. When nut-jobs come together to kill people, knowing they too will likely be killed, there is precious little anyone can do about it except grieve and refuse to be manipulated. I don't really care if you don't catch them all - I can't realistically expect you to. Put your ego over your job aside - we recognise that the occasional murder it is a cost of freedom.
"To the governments of the world . . . you have done far more to destroy my freedom than any Islamic terrorist."
Every time I hear one of these politicians talking about how we must protect 'our way of life',the only question is which part of our 'way of life' they are planning to sacrifice next.
There is nothing to support those premises and more information to counter them. There are genuine issues on how governments and the police share information. However, it is when such information is miss used that should be of concern.
The crime rates have gone down include murders. It thus various programs that this is accomplished through. This sharing of data has to do with exchanging information on how to reduce crime rates.
Security services exist for security. The important thing with those services, including government is that are rights are not violated by those services. Specifically, to improve security we do not have to compromise our rights.
@AC
"Security services exist for security."
There is nothing to support that premise : )
Couldn't resist - sorry. (That's my immaturity . . . )
"However, it is when such information is miss used that should be of concern. . . . The important thing with those services, including government is that [our] rights are not violated by those services."
Well, this is the thing. What we know is that our rights have been, are being and will continue to be violated. Frequently, grossly and apparently with an arrogant disregard not just for the rights being violated but also for the people having those rights violated - us.
That arrogance is the biggest problem because it sets our governments and these agencies as above us - we are the ignorant masses who don't understand just how good we have it and how lucky we are. We should just shut up and trust them because they are smarter than us and know what's best for us and you can't go to that concert because I said so; that's why.
With that attitude of self-importance they feel they are not answerable to us - the rules that apply to us don't apply to them because, well, you get the idea.
With that in mind - the sure knowledge that our governments ARE and WILL CONTINUE TO violate our rights - we have to ask ourselves whether the potential benefits of these programmes out weigh the assured intrusions into our everyday lives and what many consider to be the fundamental tenets of our collective way of life.
In other words, we must ASSUME that our rights will be violated and decide if the supposed benefits are still worth the cost. Yes, one can theorise about the ways that these programmes might be conducted more responsibly and without violating our rights but it's pointless to defend an unrealistic ideal version of something - we have to look at what we have and judge it on the reality of how it works now, not how it could, one day, maybe, if only, wouldn't it be better if it did, if everyone comes around, work.
The two brothers who perpetrated the Charlie Hebdo attack were both on French security services' radar. Both had been known to travel or want to travel to such exotic holiday destinations as Yemen and Iraq, where they were trained in useful skills such as armed combat and intelligence.
The gentleman who shot up the kosher grocery had been in and out of prison many times, and was a known Islamic extremist and associate of the Charlie Hebdo attackers.
The fact is that "we" knew who these people were. They had at various points been under surveillance.
The same thing was true of the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston. And the same thing was true of the Lee Rigby murderers.
I don't see how flooding the intelligence services with more false leads from "654 million websites" is going to help make the population safer, when they can't keep an eye on the actual known/suspected militants they already know about.
They've got plenty of data, just not enough humans to process it. What are they expecting, a message saying "I'm doing to do xyz" passed to them?
Someone jokes they're going to blow up an airport if they "don't get their shit together", end result? conviction.
Yet terrorists don't get caught out and when they do it's not always due to intelligence. The EDF march bombers got caught by screwing up their temporary car insurance application (wrong digit on the numberplate).
Anyone capable of reading will also be well aware that the people committing these heinous crimes were already known to the security services, and were demoted to "not interesting enough to keep an eye on" only a couple of months before this attack.
Please, enlighten me how giving them unfettered access to read my Facebook account and emails could have prevented a tragedy perpetrated by someone in France that they knew about, but chose to stop watching?
Apparently if you don't want to be monitored by your own government, all you need to do is associate with known terrorists, go get some proper terrorist training in the Middle East, then come home and don't do anything for a few months; they'll get bored and completely ignore you then. >.<
As far as I can make out from the safety of my tin-foil hat, the only thing that's really wrong is that the so-called Security Services are so secure they just don't want to talk to each other. I believe the most-quoted post-massacre phrase last year was ".. security service were aware of these people..".
If they're so aware then why didn't they share the data instead of wasting time on PFY playing around with TOR?
When I applied for a data examination job with a certain government agency on the outskirts of Scarborough, I was turned down because I'd never used their systems before and they would have had to train me to know how to use them. Taking their cue from the private sector, they are only prepared to take people on who already know how to do their highly-job-specific job.
Alphabet soup agencies, don't you think this pattern is weighing a bit thin. It's not hard to see time and time again why the patsies who commit terror in the west are already on your agency watch list, because the agencies fund the patsies in the first place. ISIS anyone.
It's the WW2 German Reichstag over and over and over again - problem, reaction, solution - where the agency that creates the problem provide the solution. All the needs is enough human muppet's to react in fear so to push their solution into law for no ones benefit but their own. For Paris it's now ISP's. God only knows what EU directive has already been created prior to and for the Paris event.
Of course, we need these laws to maintain our Liberal society, free speech, media and democracy.....Yeah right, pull the other one. Hitler's Europe all over again.
Muppet's (me included) wake up, stop reacting in fear and take positive control of your life.
Hmmm
I love the logic governments employ in these situations. Someone commits a terrible crime, and the first thing the government wants is all the law abiding citizens to give up their freedoms and privacy. Isn't our privacy and hence to a certain extent our freedom the very thing that governments are supposed to be protecting? And isn't it a fact that given that governments are run by people that a certain amount of corruption is inevitable. Therefore the more privacy citizens sacrifice the more likely, and the easier it will be for that criminal element that always inhabits governments will be able to harm the citizens? In other words this is a slippery slope that history has shown inevitably leads to government oppression, tyranny, and dictatorships. And in case you haven't been paying attention the US Great Briton, and Israel are already a long long way down that slope.
Dear David,
1. They're not terrorists until they are convicted in a court of law of doing something terror-y. Until then they're citizens.
2. The only way to deny possible-future-terrorists safe spaces to talk to each other, is to deny EVERYONE safe spaces to talk to each other.
3. Your duty in government is not to protect us, please stop repeating that falsehood. Drug wars and the nanny state that way lie.
SIgned,
Subject Under Surveillance
Re: "The take-away from politicians on both sides of the pond today, once you set aside the posturing about freedom of expression: demands for greater surveillance of citizens' movements online are back on the agenda in a big way."
The take-away from politicians in all Totalitarian states today, once you set aside the illusion of freedom of expression: demands for greater surveillance of citizens' movements online are back on the agenda in a big way.
TFTFY
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