UK Government Says More Spying Needed 297
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."
re (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's about control not terrorism (Score:3, Informative)
Go look up near infrared photography. It's mainly used as bikini-see through and such voyeurism.
Im sure it works on most burkas.
Re:I'll take the risk then! (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Anonymous networks (Score:1, Informative)
Anonymity online, and not being tracked by people with ridiculous reasons, it's what they provide and what people need (especially now that China, the UK, the US and I thought Sweden as well, are tracking their own citizens).
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]
Re:It's about control not terrorism (Score:3, Informative)
Are frogs and deers counted into that number?
Your link says 3201 road deaths.
(Your point is still valid though.)
Re:Next step (Score:3, Informative)
You mean like this:
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/10/02/cctv-cameras-installed-at-school-toilet-blocks-64375-21944943/ [liverpooldailypost.co.uk]
Or this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/506140.stm [bbc.co.uk]
O perhaps you meant this:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/235/235518_school_puts_cctv_in_toilets_to_stop_bullies.html [manchester...news.co.uk]
Or maybe you wanted a more technological look rather than local papers:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/19/school_cctv/ [theregister.co.uk]
We already live in a police state. That much is certain, and the State's biggest accomplishment is not the camera on every street, in every office, every school, on every motorway. It's not the limitless wiretapping, the ability to have people "disappear" or to deploy troops in peacetime if the public decide it's time for a change.
No. The British Government's major achievement since 1997 has been that the majority of people do not realise we now live in a Police State.
Worse yet, the Government show no signs of slowing in their program; if anything they're accelerating it. Right now, they could put us under curfews and restrictions that make Nazi Germany seem "free", and they would have broken no laws However, the people would stand-up at that point.
No, the Government will act only when they have to; and when that fist is brought down upon the objectors and decriers, when people start disappearing into black-bags, never to be heard of again for "sedition" or "terrorism", it will be too late to stop them.
I am afraid of my Government and I am not the only one.
People shouldn't fear their Government. The Government should fear the People.