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UK Government Says More Spying Needed
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Oct 11, 2008 01:32 AM
from the need-to-make-up-for-the-losses dept.
from the need-to-make-up-for-the-losses dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Our wonderful government here in the UK has decided we're not being surveilled enough, and agreed to spend £12 billion on a programme to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage. According to various sources, upwards of £1 billion has already been spent on the uber-database. Rationale? Terrorism, of course (no prizes for guessing).
Needless to say, not everyone is as happy as Larry over this: Michael Parker pointed out how us Brits are being 'stalked.' I'm just looking forward to when the data gets lost."
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Firehose:UK government: more spying needed by Anonymous Coward
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Keyhole career. (Score:5, Insightful)
""Our wonderful government here in the UK has decided we're not being surveilled enough, and agreed to spend £12 billion on a programme to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage."
With economies going the way they are. job security will be spying on each other.
Re:Keyhole career. (Score:5, Insightful)
With economies going the way they are. job security will be spying on each other.
Fear, what can't it do?
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Re:Keyhole career. (Score:5, Informative)
Fear, what can't it do?
Not much, it seems :(
We've had a lot of rights removed over the past decade or so, rights we've had since the magna carta, but which have been discarded without debate or thought.
As an example:
Taken from the site protests.org.uk [protests.org.uk]
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Re:By George, Let's Have More Spying Then! (Score:4, Funny)
The king decries it!
I do not think that word [merriam-webster.com] means what you think it means.
Perhaps you meant this word [merriam-webster.com]?
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Re:Keyhole career. (Score:5, Informative)
Apologies for a serious reply to a joking post, but having worked temporarily in a government office and now working for a company which refuses to do government work full stop, this isn't how it works either.
The government appears to be completely incompetent managing these contracts. They order one thing, then completely change their mind. They demand the impossible. They insist how things should work instead of focusing on what it should accomplish. Both sides end up pissed off and out of pocket.
We're currently working on a contract for the Olympics. The olympics delivery authority is currently holding bidding for a job, and has spent months choosing a provider, but they've demanded that once they choose a provider, the system is ready in two weeks. That schedule is not possible. As a result, we've already done the job, and the other bidders must have either done the same or are planning to just not meet the contractual dates.
As I mentioned, we don't work with the government. We've done the job as a subcontractor to one of the bidders, and we've been paid whoever wins the job. Pricing is never straightforward, but one way or another, the government will in the end have paid for half a dozen implementations of their system, all but one of which will be thrown in the trash. The bidding companies will just add their lost costs onto another job they win. This is really where the cost overruns on every single job go.
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In every country ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately most people fail to see the connection between lists and any danger. The lists are being made to influence people who speaking out against the ones in power. But most people fail to see the danger of giving the power seekers ever more data to mine on everyone. Knowledge is power and the ones in power seek the use that knowledge to prevent people standing against their point of view.
With ever more detailed lists on peoples views, soon we end up with people fearful of what they say on the phone and in emails, for fear of their views could even just risk being taken out of context and seen in any way critical of the people in power. At that point, the ones in power are influencing people directly.
At that point, we live in a police state, where freedom is gone and replaced by fear of the ones in power. Problem is, we are getting there now, and from here on out, its simply a matter of consolidation of ever more detailed data mining.
The central reason why centuries ago votes were made in secret, was to prevent the ones in power, from seeking to influence the voters. Yet the power seekers are forever seeking to game the system to gain ever more information on peoples opinions. Now the ones in power are building automated systems to influence people.
Throughout history its been shown time and time again that the ones in power become ever more corrupt over time without any feedback on how they are behaving. Its been show so many times through history.
Most people don't realise the game people in power are playing. People in power are not so interested in individuals. The ones in power are interested in adding everyone to different lists so they can then control and profiling groups of people, so they can then use divide and conquer tactics, to break groups of people up. The goal is that the fragmented groups cannot then stand and oppose the point of view of the ones in power. That is why they data mine.
The lessons of history have not been learned by enough people. Looks like the world is seeking to repeat the mistakes of the past. Freedom and democracy are constantly undermined by a minority of people in power for their own gain. Its just a matter of time and how far we are going to let them all game the system to push the excesses ever more unfairly in their favour. After all, its not as if they are robbing hundreds of billions of tax payers money to keep their rich lifestyles while millions risk loosing everything.
Anyway, if the millions of people can't buy bread, then let them eat cake. ... My point is, the names in history change and the names of their ideologies change. But what remains is basic human psychology and that doesn't change. The lack of empathy of the ones in power over their powerless minions never changes. For all their words, its only their actions which count and millions now face loosing their jobs and millions are treated unfairly by the ones in power.
In such a world, its no surprise that the ones in power would want to watch their minions very closely. After all, people could start to complain its getting all to unfair. But we cannot have that. We need ever more laws to protect the ones in power and ever more laws to keep the minions down and away from power.
The world will never change until everyone worldwide realises that people who constantly seek power over others have a recognisable cluster B personality disorder. All cluster B personality disorders are ultimately driven by fear. And the ones with the disorder constantly seek to control that fear and control everyone around them based on their fear. (There are multiple fears, two examples are lack of attention and the other is fear of lack of power. The attention seekers want more attention (they were deprived of parental attention as children. The ones who want power seek to prevent anyone ever having power over them again, the way they were treated unfairly as children)... The very nature of seeking power over others, means that person seeks to push other
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Thats would make a nice tax rebate check (Score:4, Interesting)
Thats almost 200 pounds for every man woman and child in the UK.
--
IP Address Finding [ipfinding.com]
Next step (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Next step (Score:5, Funny)
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re (Score:5, Informative)
Ah! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's about control not terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK had its own domestic terrorists for decades: the IRA. Yet the government did not feel that such pervasive monitoring was necessary. Now, largely because of something that happened 3000 miles away, the UK feels that such pervasive monitoring is necessary.
I say BS: every agency is wetting themselves hoping to get their hands on this data so that they can pursue their own petty agendas in the same way as RIPA powers have been used for trivial reasons.
Everyone has something to hide. Not necessarily illegal, but enough to coerce behavior.
Re:It's about control not terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
What's bizarre is that our government has such intrusive tendencies as to have a camera covering every stretch of the country yet also has such 'religious tolerance' that those who wish to wear a burqa [imcworldwide.org], which is effectively a personal tent, allowing them to avoid any kind of indentification, are free to do so. That's what I call an inconsistent set of beliefs. IMO, any group serious in their intent to monitor the population would not allow the monitored to so easily avoid their gaze.
Could this be the governemt being manipulated by security theatre experts?
SecurityAdvisors> Omg, we're running out of ponies!
Government> Aaaarghhh, Panic!
SecurityAdvisors> Never fear, our surveillance systems will save us. *cough* a bargain at £12 Billion"
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Re:It's about control not terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK had its own domestic terrorists for decades: the IRA. Yet the government did not feel that such pervasive monitoring was necessary. Now, largely because of something that happened 3000 miles away, the UK feels that such pervasive monitoring is necessary.
I disagree - I don't think the change is that monitoring is suddenly *necessary*, more that it's suddenly *possible*.
Decades ago we didn't have the technology to routinely capture, store and process this information. Decades ago, the public might not have stood for it.
Now we have the technology. September 11th didn't make monitoring necessary, but did make it politically acceptable.
Why do governments build such systems? Because they can.
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I'll take the risk then! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have thought over it many times and, regarding myself, I have concluded: I would prefer to live freely and unobserved and someday die in a terrorist attack, than live in a "security" hell for all my life with cameras and RFIDs up my ass.
Put aside the fact that surveillance almost never stops a attack - only it helps find the burned-out guys.
And some semantics: How many of you walk in the street and feels ''terrorized''? On the other hand, how many of you feel terrorized by the fact that your every moment is on tape, and your personal data wanders in places you don't know?
Re:I'll take the risk then! (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen. Once in a while you wish Slashdot had a golden +10 moderation, and this is one of those times.
"Terrorism", when looked at number of deaths per year, is basically a total non-issue. How many people have been killed by terrorism in the UK in the last 50 years? Would anyone support a program where you spend _millions_ per prevented death, knowing that far more deaths could have been prevented by spending the same money to prevent something with far higher mortality rates - say, by improving traffic safety, or by reducing the number of smokers?
Terrorism is such political bullshit. Sure, some people get killed (and I grief for them), and we do need to be careful - but we should not, under any circumstance, change our entire way of life, the entire structure of our civilisation, just because a bearded monkey in a cave in Afghanistan got a little upset with us.
There is no al queada (oh sure, there are some people taking that name, but there is no Dr. Blofeld-style, centrally led organisation hell-bent on destroying western civilisation. It is all opportunistic, people sharing a banner that was largely _invented_ by the US). And bin Laden, if he is still alive at all, is a sick, dirty old man living under extremely poor conditions in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and only a threat to himself.
Stop the fear already.
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Re:I'll take the risk then! (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop the fear already.
Stop what fear? I don't know ANYONE who is fearful of terrorists, or being caught in terrorist acts. I don't even know anyone who knows anyone who is scared of this BS. As near as I can tell, it's 100% political propaganda that nameless people are scared and want more big-brother style "protection". People want more self reliance and an honest right to defend themselves when the need arises... be it from terrorist, thugs, or the government.
A challenge to all Slashdotters: If anyone can tell me of people - either you, or people that you personally know - who are genuinely afraid of these things happening, post your stories now:
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Re:I'll take the risk then! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:I'll take the risk then! (Score:5, Funny)
I know it's a rhetorical question but I've just been looking this up myself. This includes the IRA, so just under 2000 including terrorists being killed, according to Wikipedia. That's 40 a year. Slightly higher than the number of tea cosy related accidents. [theyorker.co.uk]
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The United Kingdom is now The Villiage (Score:5, Insightful)
And you're ALL Number 6.
Do you have the courage that Number 6 had? Will you fight back against Number 2?
Are you just "A number" or are you Free Men & Women?
The choice is yours.
Abuse of power ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm Glad I Moved to Germany (Score:5, Interesting)
I've escaped all this crap by moving to Germany. I never really like the way britain is becoming a surveillance state and moving here was such a breath of fresh air.
It wasn't that hard to find an IT job either, only one month of serious searching.
I'll never need one of these british ID cards, I'm not paying for that bloody database, and the DNA database here has people's names taken out of it if they aren't found guilty.
Opportunity cost (Score:5, Insightful)
So, to fight this, we have a £1 billion database, a £12 billion surveillance program, and an ID cards scheme costing £18 billion. £31 billion for fighting those 500 deaths, or £62 million per death presumably prevented.
Perhaps if this £31 billion was spent on subsidising healthy food or teaching kids to cook properly and healthily, we could see a drop in the several thousand heart disease related deaths each year. If it was spent on road safety perhaps we could see a drop on the 3000 or so people killed on the roads each year.
Why are we worrying about terrorism?
An Avian IP Network at last. (Score:4, Funny)
In other news:
It is with great sadness that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds [rspb.org.uk] report that the wild pigeon population is being totally decimated, yet strangely there is no evidence of the cause of the presumed deaths.
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] reports that the hit rate on a page about an interesting implementation of IP [wikipedia.org] has increased by several orders of magnitude.
The IETF report that the RFC server for rfc1149 [ietf.org] and rfc2549 [ietf.org] have been pom-dotted into oblivion by millions of Britons determined to preserve their privacy.
The price of quality eggs of pure racing pigeon breeding stock has suddenly punctured the thousand pound barrier for the first time in history, resulting in the share value of the British Consolidated Pigeon Breeding Co. increasing by 500% per day for the last week.
Market analysts are dumbfounded.
Re:When I was a kid... (Score:4, Insightful)
Modern day Britain reminds me of the science fiction dystopia portrayed on the old British TV show The Prisoner [wikipedia.org].
It's sad and foreboding how social and technological dystopia's emerge from what was once only imaginative musings of science fiction writers.
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