Reply to post: A Scenario that doesn't give The State right to ruin our democracy.

A Scenario that doesn't give The State right to ruin our democracy.

Scenario:

1. Say Alice has never come to the attention of the law thus there's no knowledge of or surveillance on her.

2. Alice is in her home and she says to Bob that she is planning an illegal activity. No one will ever know about that activity unless (a) either one or other blabs or (b) the knowledge of their identity leaks out because of imperfect execution of the crime. In the long history of fighting crime, normally this is where the police/authorities enter the scene.

3. Private living space expands: Alice and Bob are now connected via an unencrypted communication network. Again, in the normal course of events–i.e.: no ubiquitous state surveillance–no one will still be any wiser to their planned illegal activity.

4. Widespread state surveillance is implemented and Alice and Bob are overheard, game's up! It's roughly equivalent to Alice and Bob speaking loudly at home and nosey-neighbour serendipitously overhears the conversation and reports it.

5. Neighbours Betty and Paul are on the opposite side of nosey-neighbour and they hear of Alice and Bob's horrible plight so they agree never speak their nefarious plans loudly enough for nosey-neighbour to overhear them.

6. Nosey-neighbour, now keyed up with first success, deliberately spies (intrudes into) Betty and Paul's private space by putting a tiny mike bug through a hole in the adjacent wall and overhears a conversation that otherwise would be completely private. What nosey-neighbour has deliberately done is to commit an act of spying on his or her neighbour without any prior evidence. Just because he/she has spied and thus overheard some nefarious plan DOES NOT make what he/she has done right.

What Andrew Parker and cronies have done is to say we ACCIDENTALLY overheard Alice and Bob concocting some nefarious plan in their private home so that gives us the right to drill holes in everyone's wall and drop in a hidden mike.

Well, I and I reckon any reasonable person, would contend that The State has gone too far–because of technology it accidentally stumbled on a way of making plod detective work easier by spying on everyone. In essence, this is not new law for a new environment (i.e.: telephone/electronic network) BECAUSE in NORMAL circumstances that electronic network is just an extension of one's private space (being private space the old rules still apply–or they should).

7. Continuing on: Thus, when a third couple get wind of the plight of the previous two they decide to encrypt the extension of their private space.

8. When Andrew Parker and cronies get wind of this encryption they now cry foul as they permanently want access–to private space that they NEVER previously had rights to access. What Andrew Parker and cronies have done is fundamentally to reduce the freedoms of everyone in the state and they have done it dishonestly and by sleight-of-hand. This incessant creeping in on our freedoms by The State is not only Orwellian but it is also fundamentally paralysing democracy.

Private space is just that–private. People say and do silly things in the private domain which for the very vast majority of the population is harmless–thus they should remain private. Orwellian state monitoring of the population will not only detect many false positives but it will also likely to ruin people's lives in the process not to mention generally making society much more fearful.

If The State wants to gather surveillance then let it do it in the manner it has always been done–by foot, contacts etc., etc. Once it has good reason to think Alice and Bob are up to some nefarious business then it can apply for a wiretap warrant in the traditional manner.

Allowing The State and its spy agencies carte blanche is unacceptable. Just because it is easier for spies to sit all day in front of screens instead of being out and around on the beat is not sufficient an excuse for them to further ruin our fragile democracy.