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UK Conservatives Pledge To Create Government-Controlled Internet (independent.co.uk) 186

Martin S. writes: Theresa May, the leader of the UK Conservative Party has pledged to create new internet that would be controlled and regulated by government on re-election. An early lead in the polls appears to be slipping but not slowly enough to change the result. Social Media has rapidly become an intense political battlefield. Known as #Mayhem in some circles, but seemingly able to command significant support from new and old media. Also, applying new social media analytics. According to the manifesto, the plans will allow Britain to become "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet." It states, "Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet... We disagree."
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UK Conservatives Pledge To Create Government-Controlled Internet

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  • by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @07:49PM (#54452469)
    They passed the Snooper's Charter. They could very well pass this too.
    • by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:12PM (#54452579)

      This shit reminds me of V for Vendetta

      • by Anonymous Coward

        And this is exactly why you should be persuading people to register to vote - they still have a day or so! - and to vote the Tories out. Both Labour and the Lib Dems would be far better for the country than this shower of Tory shite. The UK press, and increasingly the BBC, are promoting Tory ideology while subtly or unsubtly denigrating Labour's (fully costed, in comparison to the Tories') manifesto. If Labour cannot win in your area, vote tactically to do your bit [tactical2017.com] in getting rid of this group of authori

        • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
          The Sun like the Tories, so the Tories will get in. That's how it works. Don't get your hopes up for anything else. The British electorate are just as stupid, perhaps even slightly more stupid, than the American electorate.
    • Viable Opposition (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:16PM (#54452595)
      This is why we need viable leftist opposition parties that actually care about things like free speech, labor rights, and illegal immigration. If you spit in the voting public's face long enough, they will flock to the lesser evil that doesn't completely disregard their interests.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Why does not the Brit yeomanry shoot down, hang and slaughter the mocking elites tyrannizing them ? Have they lost completely 14,000 years of Pict, Roman, Saxon, spear-Dane and Burgundian blood ? Smells like the shitpile left over from a drunken faggot bawd.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        They only care about that, while in opposition.

        10 nanoseconds after receiving the reins of power, all those promises about free speech, civil liberties, winding back intrusive state surveillance will disappear into the ether, and be replaced by the necessary to prevent terrorism crime drugs child abuse mantra.

      • FFS (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:37PM (#54452731)

        Will shitheads please stop conflating things that aren't related to each other? "Right wingers" often care about free speech, especially in regards to refuting government control! It's fuckers like you from both artificial "sides" of politics, that conflate shit to make politics into a fucking football match, that stop "Lefists" and "Right wingers" from banding together to stop this sort of dystopian, rights-squandering, stupid government overreach from happening. When it gets through, it will be because people like YOU won't agree on this issue because you are too busy pigeonholing people you disagree with on other issues as the dreaded Other!

        • Re:FFS (Score:4, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:43PM (#54452769)

          Except that time and time again, the right side of politics show that they don't give a shit about people and only care about business.

          So maybe your side should try and do something about that, or we will keep labelling you as arseholes.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Freischutz ( 4776131 )

          Will shitheads please stop conflating things that aren't related to each other? "Right wingers" often care about free speech, especially in regards to refuting government control! It's fuckers like you from both artificial "sides" of politics, that conflate shit to make politics into a fucking football match, that stop "Lefists" and "Right wingers" from banding together to stop this sort of dystopian, rights-squandering, stupid government overreach from happening. When it gets through, it will be because people like YOU won't agree on this issue because you are too busy pigeonholing people you disagree with on other issues as the dreaded Other!

          That is true, one should not pigeonhole people, but according to the polls millions of conservatives are going to go out and vote for this woman. So while these conservatives may care about freedom of speech and government control it would appear that they do not care about these things so much that voting for somebody who wants to gut freedom of speech and extend government control is a deal breaker for them. Now I'm not saying that they should go out and vote for Jeremy Corbyn but they could stay at home

          • There's the LibDems, too. From what I understand, Corbyn and Labour are something of a dumpster fire right now. I don't know that the LibDems are any better, but they're around. My understanding of UK politics is limited too, but I also want to say that either Labour or the LibDems have a problem in that Scotland will mostly vote SNP, meaning it's that much harder to beat the Tories to a majority.

            Point I wanted to make though is that there's other choices than the Tories or Labour.
            • Re:FFS (Score:5, Insightful)

              by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @04:45AM (#54454011) Homepage Journal

              This really depends on who's media you read. If you are basing those facts on British TV and Newspapers the chances are you wont have noticed that Theresa May's party could equally be branded with the "dumpster fire" slur. After all , her party was fighting over the manifesto and was the last to get it released. And my what a nightmarish proposition it is. But the BBC and even "reputable" newspapers are guilty of bias.

              I would remind voters that they are NOT voting for the leader of the party ,they are voting on their candidate. Read the manifesto's and decide which policies you think are beneficial. Try not to be selfish , think about how those policies will affect not you , but everyone else in the coutry. Try to think about how those policies will affect the environment and the planet. But do NOT vote because you have a thing against a certain person.

              Reading the Conservative manifesto is basically a death wish for millions of needy people and also for the environment. FFS do not endorse the Tory manifesto by voting for it.

              • Voters are voting on whatever they choose to vote on. It is up to them.

                If they want to vote on manifestos then that is their choice. If they want vote on who is most telegenic then that is their choice. If they want vote on whichever leadership team seems the most competent then that is their choice.

                It is the job of the political parties to win the election. They can do this in many ways - by closely following public opinion so as never to upset anyone; by trying to change public opinion by being persuasive

          • according to the polls millions of conservatives are going to go out and vote for this woman

            You are one of the "conflationistas".

            Some people probably are voting for May. Most are voting against the alternatives. In the UK, almost all votes are against something, rather than for someone.

            And the reason a lot of people vote right of Labour is that that the Labour has proved in the past, and continues to demonstrate, that it has not the slightest inkling that wealth is created, let alone how. It is the p

            • by Anonymous Coward

              This is a rehash of the theory of "trickle down economics", which past history has shown to actually work in reverse. I can guarentee I earn more than you, yet will be voting Labour. Apart from the horrific censorship and spying on everyone on the internet in the UK, the tories will be introducing a " death tax" and stealing my families property, are set to destroy my pension and have indicated they are about to raise taxes considerably for everyone. What the tories offer are an assault on freedom and steal

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Traditionally Big Brother has been only a leftist, big-goverment thing. These days it is hard to tell the "conservatives" from the liberals. You are barking up the wrong tree(s). Both conservatives and liberals want big government these days. This goes directly against your desire for less intervention, laws, and loss-of-privacy. I'm sure you will get it eventually.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          >Traditionally Big Brother has been only a leftist, big-goverment thing.

          forgot about the nazi's?

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Not right now they won't... Because immigrants.

        The Tories have picked up all the UKIP voters. Their primary concern is getting rid of immigrants. That overrides all other concerns.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        This is why we need viable leftist opposition parties that actually care about things like free speech, labor rights, and illegal immigration. If you spit in the voting public's face long enough, they will flock to the lesser evil that doesn't completely disregard their interests.

        Which lesser evil would that be?
        Conservatives all over the world have pretty much declared themselves to be enemies of the people.
        When conservatives don't think that common people should have rights there aren't many alternatives to going left, regardless of if you think they are viable or not.

    • There's this country in Asia that has considerable experience with a government-controlled internet [wikipedia.org]. Perhaps the Conservatives could arrange a trip there to learn?
    • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
      They will. And the moronic Brits who keep voting these cunts in will lap it up.
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The UK collected every call into and out of Ireland. The best part of that was never telling any UK court, police officer, human rights group, member of the press or lawyer about that collection.
      The GCHQ and UK mil got on with tracking and collect it all outside of the UK courts. Interesting supporters of Ireland in the US kept on raising funds and talking to interesting people in Ireland.
      As no open/secret court action was taken people kept on talking, meeting, supporting, funding, mentioning names.
      The
      • Good points. Not only that but the right wing Conservative party have seen an opportunity through the Brexit process for a land grab of unimaginable proportions. The policies they have put in their manifesto will take them forward a quarter of a century on the path to oppression in a single election. This is a disaster of epic proportions because no party once in power has ever stepped away from the levers of power once acquired. So all this shit is here to stay even if they get voted out in the future. Given the strength of the position they are giving themselves on big data I doubt they will leave power for the next quarter century either. This is the biggest political disaster in my lifetime, the end of politics; total corruption.

        The UK will indeed be leading the world, leading the world with a right-wing big-government totalitarian hell hole.

        • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          To make this work the UK will have to mandate junk NSA standard encryption all over the UK. Everything networked in the UK will revert to plain text, be sorted, collected and tracked ready for legal action.
          Nobody interesting has to use the internet but in the past felt it was not a huge risk. The winners are the contractors, installers, people who have the over time to keep collection working and the courts and police who decide who to investigate.

          The part the UK of all nations should understand is tha
  • by Anonymous Coward

    descending into totalitarianism slowly but surely.

    • Re: poor britain (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Oxygen99 ( 634999 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @07:57PM (#54452517)
      We've never had a taste of fascist government before so we don't know how it happens. We will though.
    • by thesupraman ( 179040 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:26PM (#54452649)

      The thing to remember is that this is pretty much all a reaction to the BREXIT vote.

      As was pretty clear to anyone not jerking their knee, that vote turned into a 'do what the government/financial organisations tell you' versus 'dont do what they tell you', as we know where that ended up.

      Now, the government, naturally, was horrified - people actually exercised their rights, against what they were told to do, even though they were told it would cost the people in power actual money!

      So, what is the governments reaction? To do their very best to make sure that can never happen again. They want total control, which means both controlling the flow of information, and knowing everything about everyone, so they can keep the population nice and compliant. In other words, those in control are escalating, rather than learning from their mistake - they are doubling down on their losses.

      The only sane solution for the general population is to double down on telling them no. Not through such ridiculous means as protest or debate, and of course not through any form of violence - that is just giving more control to those in power as they make the majority think they need more protection.

      The solution is to keep doing exactly what they don't want you to - and that is voting AGAINST them, removing career politicians from office whenever and where ever possible. Unfortunately that is going to mean voting for some idiots - but the important thing to do is to vote for idiots that wont be able to hold on to power - ones who talk too much, dont have lots of friends in high places, etc.

      Very sad, but thats what democracy has degenerated to - mostly because of a lack of limitations in place to stop politicians continuously growing their power.

      Those in control need to know that the majority wont support their carefully crafted 'you need us, give us more power over you' story.

      • people actually exercised their rights, against what they were told to do, even though they were told it would cost the people in power actual money!

        Well, Robert Murdoch is really happy with it. I mean, I suppose he has power, and will make a lot more money. Because he has a lot of power in the UK, but not in the EU.

      • by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @10:02PM (#54453055)

        It's not punishment for Brexit. They've wanted to do this kind of stuff for years but needed to be out of the EU to do it. Once the UK is out of the EU the government will be free to trounce upon the rights of the people because citizens won't be able to go to the Supreme Court in Brussels.

        They played the fear of immigrants along with lies that money no longer going to the EU would pay for everything, especially the NHS. The day after the vote they said there was no money for the NHS or anything else and they recently admitted it was all lies. And May will continue to promise a bunch of pretty things for the voters this election to get in so that she can finalize the UKs exit from the EU and introduce a bunch of draconian legislation such as this. All in the name to fight terrorism and protect the children. The people need most protecting from the politicians right now.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Wow, we finally have a Supreme Court in Brussels! Thanks for telling us! My information was rather outdated, so I was still under the impression that there was just the ECJ in Luxembourg, which only looks at violations of specifically European law.

        • Once the UK is out of the EU the government will be free to trounce upon the rights of the people because citizens won't be able to go to the Supreme Court in Brussels.

          Yes - the technical term is bringing back sovereignty - its not the sovereignty of the people, its sovereignty of our nit-wit MPs. We are still exactly where we were before - the Monster Raving Looney Party still has no seats.

        • When has an EU court ruled in favor of internet liberty? The "right to be forgotten" and "hate speech" come out of the German heart of the EU, the porn restrictions are cousins of Scandinavian feminist policy. Islamist terror is not mentioned at all
        • UK government isn't bound by any rights other than the toothless Human Rights Act. Though it can be embarrassing for them to be told they've breached the rights of their citizens.

        • by Jahta ( 1141213 )

          It's not punishment for Brexit. They've wanted to do this kind of stuff for years but needed to be out of the EU to do it. Once the UK is out of the EU the government will be free to trounce upon the rights of the people because citizens won't be able to go to the Supreme Court in Brussels.

          Exactly this. Theresa May wanted the UK to withdraw from [theguardian.com] the European Convention on Human Rights [wikipedia.org] even before the Brexit referendum took place. It isn't hard to work out why a politician would want to do away with human rights.

      • As was pretty clear to anyone not jerking their knee, that vote turned into a 'do what the government/financial organisations tell you' versus 'dont do what they tell you', as we know where that ended up.

        What the fuck are you on about? Or do you not consider that Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Davis and etc voices of the government telling people what to do? And May... well she was an inveterate fence sitter being lukewarm towards remain while it looked like it might win. Now, we have one of the biggest

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Nonsense, this isn't punishment for Brexit, this is because of Brexit.

        If you hadn't noticed that all those politicians that were pro-Brexit were also pro-authoritarianism then you weren't paying attention. There's a reason the Le Pens, and Farages of the world all praise Putin - because they love his authoritarian way of leading with an iron fist, given that, it shouldn't be surprising that that's what they want for their respective countries too to anyone who was paying attention. It should've rung alarm b

      • by Xyrus ( 755017 )

        The thing to remember is that this is pretty much all a reaction to the BREXIT vote...

        The BREXIT vote made Putin do a happy dance. It was yet another success for his global disinformation campaign that's been running for the past couple of decades. It's been wildly successful throughout Europe and even the US.

      • Are you dense? The Brexit vote winning LET'S THEM DO THIS.

        The Eurozone's Internet privacy standards are the complete opposite of what is proposed. If anything, people who voted for Brexit did exactly what the fascists wanted them to do.

        All from people abusing social media, fake news and stereotypical preconceptions instead of making a rational argument for leaving.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • No need for anything additional. I got it all in on the subject.

  • Small wonder that UK users are flooding all the VPN vendors.

  • by MindPrison ( 864299 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:18PM (#54452603) Journal

    UK never cease to amaze me.

    They have tons of CCTV cameras literally everywhere, they want the U.K. to be truly isolated from the rest of the world, Brexit...and of course, now - total control and obedience of all their citizens.

    • Those cameras are really there to prevent an apocalyptic event [wikia.com] from occurring.

      They're really there for your protection. Really.

    • The ones who want total control and obedience are not the same group of people who wanted Brexit. And by the way, Brexit is not about isolating from the rest of the world, it's about stopping mass immigration and trying to stop the fall of the Western civilization.

      • Brexit is all about being fooled by alt-right propaganda about "Muslim pedophiles" "Unelected European bureaucrats making the laws about bendy bananas" "taking back control" "Health service tourism" "Immigrants on benefits". Basically pal you have been taken for a ride by overseas Billionaires like Robert Mercer who see a future for you as their wage slave in a deregulated economy. Push the right buttons and your ignorance and per-disposition to see the worst in people did the rest. Enjoy your slavery you f

        • So your point is that I'm "ignorant" and easily fooled by some undefined "alt-right propaganda". You have no "argument", but insults. I'm curious... Do you really think insulting me will achieve anything other than making you look like someone who has no clue what he's talking about and only act emotionally? Are you sure I am the "fool" here?

          • Ignorance is not an insult, it means a lack of knowledge about the subject concerned, so yes you are ignorant of the reality and you have been fooled because you and so many others did NO research for the facts (this will cure your ignorance) - you just accepted the headlines from the anti-immigrant xenophobic rags like the daily mail and express and looked no further
            • by tendrousbeastie ( 961038 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @07:26AM (#54454311)

              I certainly take William Baric's point about the use of insults in arguments like this, rather than trying to use reason and debate. This whole page does seem very similar to a Guardian page in that regard - starts of for the first 5 minutes with an attempt at a well constructed debate (I say that regardless of what side anyone might take on any side of any debate), but then quickly everyone interested sincere debate is forced to flee because it gets taken over by insults and partisan childishness.

              Specifically addressing this particular issue (which I must if I wish to avoid being ignored) - I am British and I voted to leave the EU last June, and I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with my, there was strong feeling on either side of the debate (I'd feel annoyed if someone called me an idiot, but I feel I could live with it, I'm not given to much self-doubt). I have felt the we should leave the EU for around 15 years, and was glad to have chance to vote on it, but it was obvious obvious that as soon as the referendum neared it would get taken over by politicians and campaigners and crappy arguments such as the bus slogans.

              It doesn't mean that we all have to join in. William Baric's point above was essentially expressing his indignation about being called a idiot for his choices in a democratic vote. He expressed it with a certain emotional stance that has cased you Barsterward to reply in kind.

              Why? Why not address the points at stake and not the people. Who cares if William Baric is or is not an idiot? There is a much more interesting issue in this sub-thread about Britain's choices about surveillance, online and offline, and whether we should continue these policies and what we can do about it (I imagine this applies quite well the US too, 1st amendment notwithstanding). Why so quickly resort insults?

      • Yes they are the same, its delusional to think they are not. They arrogantly think they are better than everyone else outside the UK with nothing to justify it.
    • There might be tons of CCTV cameras but they are not all operational. In my town, the police recently called for unpaid volunteers to watch the camera feeds on weekend nights because they can't afford to pay people to do it.

      I can't decide if that's laughable or sinister.

  • by Hentes ( 2461350 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:28PM (#54452665)

    And how do they plan to convince the rest of the world to give them control over the internet? Oh right, they aren't planning to control the internet, they are planning to cut England off of it. But that doesn't sound as catchy I guess.

    • by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @09:33PM (#54452947)

      I anticipate a BIG pushback from corporate interests. Imagine the court cases based on the govt snooping on "commercial in confidence" data being transmitted within the UK and across its borders. Oh, yeah, banks, etc are going to be *real* happy to have their communications monitored and shared.

      I'd like to institute a slight modification to our democratic practices: any living politician, in office or not, whose support for something that turns out to be a clusterfuck (like this) gets to face some consequences. Perhaps confiscation of assets. If you want the power to decide these things, you can damn' well face some serious consequences for poor judgement, and not enjoy a post-career joyride on speaking tours and company directorships. Might teach them to think beyond the next election cycle.

      • I anticipate a BIG pushback from corporate interests.

        What corporate interests? Many corporate interests have already said fuck this and and a moving to countries which will remain in the EU.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      They don't have to convince the rest of the world. If they pass this then it's a test for the other governments if they can do the same. If it passes without significant protest, then they will enact and further extend their reach into our lives. You can be sure the 5 eyes will do everything they can to copy China, Iran, etc. to safeguard their political positions.

    • Basically, they'd import the technology required from China. They'd create a 'Great Wall of the United Kingdom' and draconically enforce very strict controls over what is and is not published on the UK internet, and very strict controls over what can be accessed by the UK on the rest of the worlds' internet. In a country used to being a first-world, more-or-less democratic, non-communist country, it'll be a gigantic disaster. I doubt it'll ever get off the ground. As soon as people realize what it is they'r
  • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:29PM (#54452671) Journal

    We have a government-controlled internet in the US, too. It's just not controlled by our government.

    • I don't what Internet you connect to, but I access mine via Trump WinSock. It must be under our control. ;)
    • by sims 2 ( 994794 )

      The only other "internet" i'm aware of running in parallel with the internet is Internet2
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      That organization that seems to think universities should have obnoxiously fast internetwork connections.
      Well I suppose it was obnoxious a few years ago I suppose a 100Gbps line isn't that great shared among a few thousand students anymore.

      Looking at the wiki page there is actually a few others listed in see also.

      • Anything that is larger than an intranet, that connects intranets is, well, an internet. Not the capital I Internet, but a small i internet. The US government has several, for different levels of classification and different agencies. NIPRnet is their unclassified network and can be argued to be part of the Internet, but in kind of the same way I2 is in that while it connects to it at points it has its own infrastructure. SIPRnet is for stuff classified at Secret and is a separate internet, that you can't g

  • In further comments, the Prime Minister stated, "We've long known that the internet is just a series of tubes and so we've decided that we are just going to go around and turn off all those little valves that lead outside the country. Once we've determined that our internet tubes are not leaking, we are going to add more tubes and those tubes are going to route everything into a big tank of internets. We plan to make a tank big enough to hold ALL the internets. It will be a much better paradigm than, for

  • Theresa May, (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @08:40PM (#54452749)

    and if it moves her nation towards totalitarianism, she probably Will.

  • You just handed the election to anyone that says "we're doing the brexit thing, but not cutting the internet off".

  • by Anonymous Coward

    China, North Korea, Iran...

  • by dschiptsov ( 4126095 ) on Friday May 19, 2017 @10:14PM (#54453105) Homepage
    China, Iran, Russia and Turkey for this kind of innovations. It would be sad and ironic if UK will join this elite club.
  • I remember when the Independent was a politically neutral dull and worthy newspaper. Now it has become an anti-government clickbait site.

    While it's true that the Tories have a lot of stupid ideas about regulating the internet,the idea that they'll create a "government controlled internet" is ridiculous, except insofar as it's already government controlled. I.e. do something illegal online, and you'll be arrested.

    90% of the article is wild speculation, trying to make concrete conclusions from vague manif
    • by Dupple ( 1016592 )

      What do you suggest as a credible source then?

      You loose your credibility by not stating one.

    • The Independent is doing it's job well. I often read two adjacent articles from both sides of the political spectrum which strongly disagree with each other. The fault I am afraid is in your psychology, you are a fanatic - just like ISIS or any other crackpot you cannot allow anyone to have a different viewpoint from you. So make your point that you think this is a trivial item in the manifesto but don't be an idiot and claim that an alternative view is fake news. That just makes you look stupid.

    • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @04:33AM (#54453983) Journal

      I remember when the Independent was a politically neutral dull and worthy newspaper. Now it has become an anti-government clickbait site.

      No, you're falling into the same trap that much of the media has fallen into. If one side is worthy of more criticism, then it is neutral to do so.

  • We got the stupid president, you got the stupid laws. If this keeps up, we'll both have both.

  • by globaljustin ( 574257 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @01:48AM (#54453685) Journal

    Nice work Airstrip One.

  • Dear Mrs. May (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @03:10AM (#54453843)

    I usually sell good advice. Actually, that's my job. This one is just for you, and it's free: Don't even try.

    In the end, what you will get if you actually go through with your plan is heaps of cost, very little gain and lots and lots of pissed off people who break any law you try to make in this area with impunity. And, to make matters worse, you create a society that doesn't take you or your state serious anymore when it comes to its ability to pass sensible laws.

    What you're heading for is essentially what fell the East Bloc: That the people you are trying to govern do not believe in your ability to govern anymore. Now, in a truly democratic society, this problem can be solved: You'll be voted out and someone who the people believe in gets voted in. Sadly, this option is not really a viable one anymore since whoever would get voted in would only continue to abuse the system you are trying to create just as much as you do.

    What people do in such a case is to simply create a society outside yours. A parallel society that lives with your laws, but basically ignore them. And such societies rarely stop at ignoring those laws that they (rightfully) identified as evil, useless and detrimental. The problem with such parallel societies is that once they start breaking laws, they cannot rely on your legal system and executive anymore to protect them against breaking other laws.

    Mrs. May, don't make the same mistake the East Bloc made. You still have a working country, despite your government, don't squander that.

  • by Martin S. ( 98249 ) on Saturday May 20, 2017 @05:26AM (#54454077) Journal

    Theresa May was previously the Minister for the Home Office and therefore responsible for the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) [gchq.gov.uk] and the failure of IT governance in that made the NHS vulnerable to attack last week.

    The conservatives also passed the Digital Economy Act 2017 [wikipedia.org] Described as 'unacceptable', 'unaffordable', and 'infeasible' by the UK Open Right Group [openrightsgroup.org] which an erosion of consumer Digital Rights and considered by many to be quid pro quo to old media barons for their support.

  • "Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet... We disagree."

    Sounds like something, fans of "Net Neutrality" would say...

    At least, UK may create a new "government controlled Internet" (or so the write-up says). America's Progressives wish to take over the existing network, impose "Title II" [techliberation.com] on the ISPs, ban the sites [freebeacon.com] they don't like and otherwise sensor "haters" [huffingtonpost.com].

  • With hookers and blackjack!

  • She's right: the UK will be the world leader not only in the surveillance of their subjects, but also in repressive control of the information they are allowed to see and their communications with others. It's another sad step toward the Brave New World.

  • North Korea already have their own government controlled and regulated internet...

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