UK MPs Hold Emergency Debate After Court Makes It Legal For GCHQ To Spy On Them (westerndailypress.co.uk) 140
An anonymous reader writes: After decades of a gentleman's agreement to exempt them from surveillance, UK MPs have discovered that GCHQ now deems them as legitimate targets of surveillance. Consequently, members of the UK Parliament have called for an emergency debate on domestic surveillance. Shadow Commons leader Chris Bryant said: "To all intents and purposes, it means that the Wilson doctrine is dead. It is the cornerstone of the bill of rights and it is one of the most ancient freedoms of this country. In another era, before the existence of telephones and emails it meant that MPs and peers, even in war, had a right for their written correspondence not to be intercepted or be interfered with."
But wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not about the ruling class (Score:5, Insightful)
How can they be the ruling class if they're lumped in with the proles? There aught a be a law!
This isn't about the ruling class. This is about everyone else. If GCHQ gets to spy on people who make decisions about how extensive their operations are, then they get to blackmail those people. This is the problem with government surveillance--not what most people do with it, but what happens if someone in a position of power within the surveillance system takes advantage of it to manipulate government decisions rather than to defend the nation or its people under the auspices of and within the constraints of the law.
Re:Not about the ruling class (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Unfortunately, it is much, much worse: If they have material about an MP before that person became an MP (and they will have that), they can already blackmail that MP.
Re:Not about the ruling class (Score:4, Insightful)
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Quite plausible. And just look at Germany where a PM that asked critical questions about the conduct of the National Police was eliminated in exactly this fashion with timing that is more than just highly suspicious. Obviously the spiritual successors to the GeStaPo have material about everybody they potentially may be threatened by, but they only use it when these people move against them. This is a hidden, slow coup, nothing else.
Re:Not about the ruling class (Score:5, Insightful)
You can make the exact same argument about people that aren't part of the government. It includes company directors, bankers, members of think tanks, journalists... all of which could be blackmailed in order to change how the country is run. And civil servants could already be spied on and government manipulated that way.
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True -- but as we've been saying for decades, the reason we're more afraid of governments than corporations is that a corporation cannot arrest you, nor can it pass a law deeming you a cr
Please, I implore you, explain how that works. (Score:1)
Because a corporation gets you arrested for, for example, shoplifting, by telling government to do it. So corporations CAN get you arrested. Just like government can.
If the police and courts are banned so the corporation can't do that, either
a) they will lose everything to looters
or
b) they will hire private corporations and arrest you (or just kill you, remember, there's no law now because you killed off all government justice systems)
So therefore the corporations can STILL have you arrested.
So PLEASE, expl
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And the police never disagree with a corporation's accusation of shoplifting?
In some countries, corporations hire private security to protect their goods.Not surprisingly, in countries [ctvnews.ca] where the government claims it serves the people, not the corporations. And serves neither.
Re: Please, I implore you, explain how that works. (Score:1)
I disagree.
The mere accusation of some crimes is more than sufficient to destroy your life. Proof of innocence or guilt is irrelevant.
Especially the modern day witch hunt variants. Ex: Spies, whistleblowers, terrorists and, of course, kiddie porn types.
Anyone, persons or corporations, can put those accusations into motion and your life, as you know it, is pretty much over.
Re:Please, I implore you, explain how that works. (Score:4, Interesting)
Corporations are international - if they can do it anywhere, they can do it everywhere - and there is plenty of history (recent history) of corporations engaging in paramilitary activity to protect profits. Not so long ago Coca-Cola actually opened fire on striking workers at a plant in South America.
Even more recently London Based LonMin pulled another favourite trick: getting the police to do their dirty work for them, and killed 38 striking miners here in South Africa.
The amazing thing is that in the ongoing investigations which have yet to yield any restitution for the survivors or justice against those who pulled the triggers, the ministers who authorised force or anybody else... nobody has so much as questioned the complicity of the lonmin executives.
The reality is that if they can do it anywhere, the effects are felt everywhere - and the laws intended to prevent that are sadly not well enforced.
The US has had a law making it illegal to import goods made with child-labour since 2001. Yet child-labour remains rampant throughout the developing world - and the factories doing it almost exclusively manufacture goods for US corporations that sell it domestically. If the law was properly enforced, the biggest market would disapear, corporations wouldn't dare buy from any factory if there is even the whiff of a risk of child labour being used - and that would destroy the viability of child labour as a business model - and do a great deal to improve the quality of life of the entire developing world. There is literally no single intervention that can do as much good as to get the children out of the factories and into schools.
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The executive arm, in any state government or the US government, has the sole power of enforcement(hence the name). Legislatures(again, in the US) have the sole power to craft, pass, and repeal laws(courts have some power that is law repealing, but judges must have a case brought before the respective courts to initiate the use of such power; judges don't get to simply muse whatever law, whenever is convenient for them, and start repeal whatever law they wish) among other duties, and courts try alleged cri
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ah but mp's make the laws about how the spies are supposed to operate, which is why they weren't supposed to be spying on the mp's.
now it makes gchq the ruling class.
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Let them blackmail - and call the bluff everytime. Soon enough, people get tired of it all. Another gay politician? Couldn't care less. Another prostitute story? Couldn't care less. (Well, his wife might care, but she's replaceable anyway - as his actions demonstrated.)
When there are too many celebrities, people doesn't care. Or they care for 15 min., and then find something else to 'care' about. Then the politician (or whatever) makes his comeback - shielded by the next shallow scandal. They might as well
Re:Not about the ruling class (Score:4, Insightful)
The special issue regarding government surveillance and blackmail is that the government has extraordinary powers to obtain blackmail information which the other entities you cite- corporations, individuals- do not. The special legal positioning given to government surveillance makes it a completely unique threat.
Sure, other entities are capable of blackmail. OK. Can they pose under cover of official LEO action and frame the blackmail as "seeking co-operation in a criminal case or matter of national security" from their victim? It's entirely legal to use the offer of immunity from prosecution as a motivating incentive to criminals in order to secure their co-operation in an ongoing investigation.
"We were going to prosecute you for this crime, but just help us out here and we'll bury this evidence against you forever instead."
So your argument that other entities are theoretically capable of blackmail also and therefore the UK's spying on MPs is not uniquely troubling is, well, itself uniquely troubling.
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You can blackmail someone only if they have something to hide. These MPs surely have nothing to hide!
(tune your sarcasm detector if it didn't blip)
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I have nothing to hide, my government said so!
Re:Not about the ruling class (Score:4, Insightful)
But blackmail is illegal anyway, so if they're willing to break the law to get what they want, they can do it either way, and if they are not willing to break the law, then the possibility of blackmailing MPs doesn't matter either.
Right. So the only winning move is to disband GCHQ entirely.
We have confirmation that in the USA the NSA spies on Senators and all-but confirmation that they're being blackmailed to support the MIC. Any US Senators who aren't willing to take those arrows (the dirt will come out if they move against the intelligence apparatus that has taken control of the governments along with the banksters) should retire and start collecting their undeserved pensions.
It's just human nature that such things happen, so it would be very surprising if GCHQ isn't operating similarly and the British MP's aren't in a similar situation. They have no move that won't hurt them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Right. It should only be possible for them to blackmail dissenters.
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"if they did it'd only take on MP to call their bluff for their whole power structure to be pulled crumbling down in a mass outrage"
Kind of like how it only takes one analyst to out the abuses of the NSA for the whole power structure over there to collapse in a mass outrage?
Re: Not about the ruling class (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, problem is that in a democracy Parliament keeps the security services in check. Not the other way around.
If voters vote in Communist-loving islamofascists it's not the job of the security services to fix voters "mistakes". If the MPs hate their own country that much and still get voted in, that's not something the security services should be concerning themselves with.
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You're conflating mass voting in of some different regime, for the odd insurgent MP who is doing damage to the nation well beyond what his electoral base is intended to allow. That's what they're stopping - subversion of democracy, not democracy itself.
Of course if people want to completely change the ethos of the country they can, but that doesn't mean that a single MP of 650 should be able to do enough damage to change the country by giving foreign powers a way in to our intelligence secrets by themselves
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So what you're saying is that any member of the public who voted in someone you really don't like must have been hoodwinked blah blah same consequence. You reveal your biases by identifying Corbyn as a communist sympathiser like some old McCarthyite, when he's little more than the average social democrat one would find throughout the post war years. I think you just have a bee in your bonnet about Putin, and don't like that a great deal of the country don't consider him as much of a grave threat as you obvi
Says you (Score:2, Insightful)
That really illustrates how it works. So you did this:
"For example, there's Jeremy Corbyn, who hates his own country's culture and history and is sympathetic to communist ideals and showing a steadfast refusal to condemn Putin, whilst condemning his own country and it's allies for doing the exact same thing who is now leader of the main parliamentary opposition. "
The basic red scare stuff. The belief that your thinking is the right one, and Corbyns/Farage etc, are the wrong ones. Cite some tenuous claim to
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whereas GCHQ are trying to keep democracy secure.
No better way to keep democracy secure than gathering dirt on elected representatives.
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I fully support democracy, but it'd be naive to pretend that people that get elected always have the best interests of the country at heart and haven't simply won their position of power through money or lies.
I think you just punched a hole in time with pure understatement.
Sadly, I would question the wisdom of trusting the likes of GCHQ with keeping government honest. I really would.
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"There is actually some sound reasoning behind this change, and that's because there is a perfect storm brewing between the cold war hotting up again as Putin reignites it, and a number of pro-Putin politicians gaining prominence. For example, there's Jeremy Corbyn, who hates his own country's culture and history and is sympathetic to communist ideals and showing a steadfast refusal to condemn Putin, whilst condemning his own country and it's allies for doing the exact same thing who is now leader of the ma
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That should have read "is NOW the case in global warming", not "is NOT the case with global warming"
Wow one little letter...
LOL....
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People here in the US Congress want to make Christianity the official religion of the nation, want to ban teaching of evolution in schools and think no woman should be able to get an abortion for any reason whatsoever, even to save her own life.
You are considerably mischaracterizing people's positions to make them sound crazy. No one has made any effort to make Christianity the official religion, and even if they managed it, the Supreme Court would destroy that law in no time. No one has banned the teaching of evolution, there have been some efforts that have mandated also teaching creationism, but they are widely considered extremists as even the Catholic Church believes in evolution. No one has called for abortion to be unavailable in ALL sit
Re: Not about the ruling class (Score:1)
Can't the security services get their own login instead of having to be an AC?
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An independent security service can be as important in keeping democracy safe, as an independent judiciary, and extra-territorial courts that can rule objectively such as the ECHR or ICC are also an added benefit. Don't dismiss the security services as always being some great evil. Yes, sometimes they go off track and engage in too broad surveillance, and they should be rightly reprimanded for that, but that doesn't mean what they do is always bad, or that they're inherently evil.
Can't believe what kind of fucking retard it takes to believe this shit enough to post it. An "independent" intelligence service as the shadowy 4th branch of government?
Sometimes they do too much, and they should be rightly reprimanded? Reprimanded by whom? They'd be independent! What is their "track" and how can anyone judge whether they've gone off of it given the case?
Parliament, the judiciary, and the security services should all be constantly keeping each other in check - you need not worry when they're going at each other because it's healthy, worry only when they're all constantly singing the same tune because then there are no longer any checks and balances.
Anonymous Coward lists the three independent branches of government: parliament, the judiciary, and the security services. Explains quite
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One common form of communication for MPs is with their constituents, thus spying on communication involving MPs generally involves spying on a great deal of communication between the proles and their political representative... but don't let that get in the way of making cliché claims that politicians think they deserve special treatment.
Re:But wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a law, but GCHQ doesn't obey laws. They simply employ people to find legal arguments to bypass them, or if that doesn't work they just ignore them and hope no-one finds out.
MPs must be extremely stupid if they think that they were not being spied on even when their gentleman's agreement was supposedly being enforced. Having to somehow avoid MP's correspondence when doing a full take capture of internet traffic is impossible. I pointed this out to my MP, but she was too dumb to understand it and appeared willing to take GCHQ's word for it that they would never break the law, despite me including copies of their documents detailing how to break the law.
Now she wants to be the next Prime Minister.
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If there was any time when a 1984 reference was justified, it's here.
The book wasn't really about a general surveillance state. The Party left most of the population so ignorant and lacking in power, pacified with bread, circuses, drugs and porn, that they could never pose a threat. No effort was wasted watching the ordinary rabble.
All the state spying was directed towards those who sought power - the ones who wanted to be a member of The Party.
Most people seem to think the book was just about a world with
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Dear MPs:
Talk shit, get hit.
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And there probably will be. Parliamentary supremacy is still a constitution fact in Britain, and if Parliament decides MPs get absolute unlimited immunity from being spied on, then that's that.
Nothing to worry about if you have nothing to hide (Score:5, Insightful)
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The judge, after moving from anti-trust to constitutional law, interpreted the US constitution very strictly. He argued that citizens had no privacy: He meant citizens had no freedoms outside those expressly dictated by the constitution.
Interpreting the constitution strictly would have the opposite result: you would find that the people have many freedoms that are not specifically enumerated, and that the government has no power beyond what is strictly defined. The constitution itself is rather clear on this topic (see amendments nine and ten, which have been cheerfully ignored by the courts for generations. Those in power, on both the left and right, appear to be quite happy with this state of affairs).
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Interpreting the constitution strictly would change many things about this country. Just read the second, it is quite clear that ALL restrictions on gun ownership are illegal.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The right of the people...shall not be infringed.
It is clearly stated. But I think you already agree with that anyways due to your signature.
Re:Nothing to worry about if you have nothing to h (Score:4, Insightful)
William Hague told us that the innocent have nothing to fear and that they're only collecting meta data etc. Successors to him have repeated that they work within a robust legal framework, must be necessary and proportionate, yadda yadda yadda.
Surely, with all these protections and assurances they can't be worried can they?
The thing that annoys me more than any of this story alone is that none of the Home Secretaries that spouted this utter bullshit will face any sort of recrimination. Tossers the lot of 'em*.
* Any MP that wants to convince me that they're not a tosser is welcome to explain themselves. I even invited my MP to demonstrate he wasn't a tosser, and all he could manage was a letter back to say he "worked very hard", thus re-inforcing my view of him.
Next on the list ... the Queen (Score:2)
First, they spied on the peons
Then, they spy on the MPs
Dear Queen Elizabeth, they will spy on you, next !
Re:Next on the list ... the Queen (Score:4, Funny)
First, they spied on the peons
Then, they spy on the MPs
Dear Queen Elizabeth, they will spy on you, next !
Don't worry, the tabloids already take care of the royal family. ;)
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I'm sure that the Queen has probably worked that out a long time ago. She'd be a much more capable leader than most of the people that have been elected. Prince Charles on the other hand...
serves them right (Score:1)
welcome to the rest of the country. You made this bed. Time to lay in it.
Re:serves them right (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't think the GCHQ will prosecute them for it though.
More likely they give the information to Cameron who can use it to blackmail or release it when it serves his political goals.
Why are they worried? (Score:4, Insightful)
With scandal after scandal, the same parties stay in power. It's the same everywhere.
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Turnabout is fair play, or however that goes.
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What turnabout? There isn't any. They suffer no consequences. They spy on us, we go to jail. Spy on them, and they retire with full benefits and a book deal.
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I believe the adage goes something like this: "Rules for thee and not for me."
Re:Why are they worried? (Score:5, Interesting)
With scandal after scandal, the same parties stay in power. It's the same everywhere.
That's because the parties are only an illusion of choice, perpetuated to placate the masses. Strike the root.
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Strike the root.
That you will find in the mirror. The 'hopelessness' is learned. All choices are personal.
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Like they did last time around?
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Strike the root
What is the root of the problem?
What solution would solve the problem?
By the way, I consider anything involving socialism, oligarchy, or any totalitarian state to be much worse than the current system.
Any "striking at the root" must improve the system, not merely destroy it so that it can replaced by garden variety misery.
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The big issue in the GCHQ at the time was positive vetting and who got to see what files. Who was autonomous enough to look after the sigint reports at the very highest level? The comint-cleared centres and very secure UKUSA material had to be protected or the US would stop the flow to the UK.
The UK is back not trusting its own again and is settling in
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Because in the party systems, you don't actually have a choice.
You have 2 (UK, USA) or 3, 4, 5 (most of Europa) parties to choose from that have a realistic chance of becoming the or part of the government. But they are all essentially the same. Like one german cabaret artist put so nicely: "Do you want to offer me shit in different flavors?"
Nothing changes, because the people in office are all the same. It's like being asked to choose your favorite team - in a sport you don't like at all. It's a meaningles
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While often true, sometimes the parties are different, with the extreme example being 1930's Germany. Especially in a Parliamentary system where Parliament is pretty well supreme, a lot of damage can be done by a government that sets out to radically change things including dismantling democracy.
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1930's Germany
That was almos one hundred years ago, I think I should not have to spell out explicitly that unless otherwise noted, I'm speaking in the context, which is the present.
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OK, present day Canada where we're having an election on Monday. 3 way race with the incumbents having done quite a few things differently then any party before. Generally the 2 main parties have been more as you describe but the incumbents have taken the Authoritarianism to new heights.
It's actually questionable whether the current government will resign if they don't win a majority (the other parties are adamant about not working with them) and at this point it's hard to see them getting an honest majorit
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It's a meaningless choice.
It's a personal choice, made by those who have surrendered for the sake of convenience.
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In Canada there are three main national parties (Conservatives, Liberals, NDP), a fourth national party (Greens), and a party that only runs in the province of Quebec (Bloc). In a nutshell the Conservatives are like the Republicans (turning more Tea Party like all the time), the NDP could be said to be left-wing Democrats, and the Liberals are somewhere in the middle but lean more towards the NDP. However they do take some policies from the Conservatives. They voted in favour of C-51 which was the big su
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or 3, 4, 5 (most of Europa)
Can we emigrate to Europa yet? It is kind of cold though...
did i pick up on it wrong? (Score:1)
My understanding was that they still weren't allowed to spy on them directly, only indirectly. So if they were spying on someone or doing mass surveillance and happened to pick up something going to/from an MP then it was ok,
Might have picked up on it wrong tho
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Do they use the internet? Do they use phones? Do they leave their own dwelling? Congratulations, you have all the indirect surveillance you could ever want.
Legal to kill them (Score:5, Insightful)
See also this from back in July:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/24/the_wilson_doctrine_is_dead_your_mps_must_be_spied_on_says_qc/
I think they miss the bigger picture here:
GCHQ spied on every Brit, and gave that data to the NSA. They told themselves it was for 'terrorism' purposes, but people will tell themselves all kind of shit to live with their choices.
GCHQ knew that NSA was tapping all of the major US service providers via PRISM. It knew that British businesses, British politicians, British campaigners, journalists, lawyers judges and their families were all being spied on. It chose to keep that secret from the UK, even keeping MPs in the dark, while keeping NSA and US President fully aware of UK surveillance activities.
GCHQ knew the smartphones were tapped and tracked, and that included every significant UK citizen, and they chose their sides, and their side was the NSA. Not the USA, because none of this mass surveillance was ever approved or discussed with voters, the NSA.
They are Stasi, they don't quite call themselves it, or fully believe it, but they are the big threat to the UK sovereignty. They created an surveillance regime that means that every up coming MP, politicians political campaigner has a US and GCHQ surveillance file on them.
Then there's this leak today:
https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-life-and-death-of-objective-peckham/
Britain REMOVED the citizenship of a British person, which then enabled his killing by drone strike when he left the country. They could have arrested him, they could have charged him, but that's messy, with evidence and discussion and checks and balances. So instead, they withdrew citizenship, killed him using his cellphone to drone target him, boom. Perhaps he was who they say he way, some major recruiter for Somalian rebels or whatever. Now history is written as though he was, and no court will ever get to see the evidence and see if they were lying.
How is it different from Putin assassinations? Its deadlier than polonium, kills a bunch of people, whom are immediately labelled as enemy combatants.
The MPs think they're special, but there is a big file on them and their families with the NSA, and GCHQ helped compile that file. If it becomes necessary that will be shared with the UK government, or perhaps you'll do something the US doesn't like and your kids embarrassing secrets will be leaked to the press.
But for the moment, they still have their citizenship, and won't be drone targeted. But they shouldn't kid themselves that GCHQ or the British government or military is protecting them, the only thing that protects them is the bad press that would result.
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But they shouldn't kid themselves that GCHQ or the British government or military is protecting them, the only thing that protects them is the bad press that would result.
And if the press should be controlled by the government?
This is precisely why, in the USA, we have the Second Amendment. The first line of defense against tyranny is the First Amendment. But if that fails then there's no other way but threat and/or usage of force and arms.
I would rather have a school shooting every single day killing tens of people each time than have death camps, mass starvation, secret police, and ultimate poverty like they have in totalitarian states like Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Chi
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He's still in power.
Tthey should be able to spy on some of them (Score:2)
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Top level sigint reports got US standards and the UK really had to keep to US standards.
The UK was working on a lot of material in paper form and it was hard to track it all during creation or as it was been worked on.
A huge risk was the UK signals units around the world with low pay, poor conditions and high level security that was felt to be secure by default. An epic mistake.. other n
First they came ... (Score:1)
First they came for the Terrorists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Terrorist.
Then they came for the Foreigners, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Foreigner.
Then they came for the Civilians, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Civilian.
Then they came for me
Live bty the sword ... (Score:2)
Do we still believe we are free (Score:1)
These are our tax dollars being wasted to spy on us instead of building roads, hospitals and essential services. This is coming to other 5 eyes lands, so do we still believe that we are free or is it just a dressed up police state where we nervously ignore what is going on in the hope of one day being rich and above all of the concerns of the populous we all occupy.
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They are not wasted. The money is spend to protect the people from terrorism and bad things. Of course now we have to define "people", because it quite obviously does not include all the citizens. It includes only lthe people who actually pay for this through their taxes, so they get to decide... no, wait. That's us, the citizens being spied upon. So it's the citizens who make most of the money a
no doubt (Score:2)
There is an emergency blackmail list being compiled now to undermine any possible defensive legislation being presented to the house.
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Genie is out of the bottle, nothing short of a drastic and revolutionary change can ever pu
This is a hard one (Score:1)
I can't decide if I'm for or against the GHCQ in this one.
On the one hand they are assholes for spying. On the other hand these MPs don't give a shit about spying as long as it isn't them.
Essential viewing (Score:2)
Re: It's the lack of filtering, not spying per say (Score:2)
If they can maintain an international watch list that's got more names on it than members in the government, mp or janitor ... Them I'm fairly certain they could do exception list
"It is the cornerstone of the bill of rights..." (Score:1)
So it was fine to spy on everyone as long as that did not include MPs?
How did anyone even say that with a straight face?
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It makes perfect sense within their very limited and garbled world view. GCHQ fight terrorists, which could be "anyone". But MPs are not terrorists. Therefore, it makes sense to protect MPs (no false negative risk) whilst spying on everyone else.
Where this perception parts with reality is that of course, once GCHQ has the tools, of course they're going to spy on MPs if they convince themselves than an MP is sufficiently dangerous e.g. threatens their budget. Corbyn offers much potential for this type of hil
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Seriously? The concern is that the most ancient freedoms only applied to MPs
The privileges given to MPs are for our benefit, not theirs. They are important for the same reason that freedom of the press is important: not because journalists are special flowers but because they are in a position to hold the executive to account.
i see nothing wrong here (Score:2)
Ah, yes, of course... (Score:2)
"But it's different when it's us!"
Boo hoo ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's about time these lawmakers who say it's perfectly OK to spy on us finally became valid targets themselves? Because as long as these self-important clowns think they're immune from this, and spying is for the little people, they'll continue to make decisions knowing they're not included in them.
When the lawmakers start realizing the extend of this surveillance and the like, maybe they'll start making intelligent policies.
That they're suddenly crying foul says they've mostly been able to be outside of it, which means they're not looking at the issue the same as the rest of us. Make this shit real to them, and then see the kind of decisions they make.
So to lawmakers and people who have previously been exempt from spying who suddenly are shocked they're included: boo fucking hoo.
Don't come to the rest of us for any damned sympathy.
Shoe on other foot (Score:2)
It cracks me up (Score:5, Insightful)
and reveals the true hypocracy of those making the rules.
We must have access to all communications ! No encryption ! We must keep you all safe from $badguys !
Wait a minute. . . you can't spy on me too ! These rules are for the peasants, not the nobles. . . .
WATCH how fast these people work to ensure their own privacy remains intact whilst they continue to allow surveillance on pretty much everyone else.
C'mon guys, you know the saying !
" What's good for the goose. . . is good for the gander. "
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The Bill of Rights 1689 (since amended both in written and unwritten law) is definitely British law.