Re: Cautiously optimistic
Once your privacy is eroded it is almost impossible to get it back. Little by little, tighter security measures are put in place due to the 'threats to the country'.
In the name of catching the bad guys, everyone's privacy under the guise of "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear" but they will only know whether you've done anything wrong by looking at your private data. They may not find a terror activity but what is to say they won't find some 'extreme' porn (definition of extreme to be decided at a later date and depending on the competency of your lawyer) or some searches that make you get added to the book of persons of interest.
There is a brainwashing that happens and follows a regular pattern. Create the threat and create the fear (it's funny how Al Queada seems like a backyard bully that is rarely mentioned nowadays, now we have ISIL/ISIS/DAESH whatever). Create a massively overburdening bill that creates uproar. Kill that bill and create a watered down version so that people will say "well it's not as bad as it could have been" but creates a precedent and allows you to your civil rights but just not by as much. Every year add a few amendments, get a bit broader, lower the oversight a little. All in the name of "what is god for you".
This bill does nothing to help with the interception of terrorists that are likely to do real damage, they are already way to careful. It will just have a major impact on the general population.
Every power that has been given in recent times has been abused - the police have used anti-terror laws to stop protesters, local authorities have used RIPA to carry out covert surveillance on people to check whether they are entitled to a school place and extreme porn laws are used as a way of convicting innocent people when they didn't find what they were looking for on their PC.
The money spent could save far more lives if invested into healthcare or road safety or anti-obesity measures. But that is not quite as exciting is it?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
