One of the dubious Indian journalist (who is above 70 years old) was caught (and on camera) soliciting sex for a minor and luring her into meeting him. It made a big news and I almost assumed the guy would be done for good. Turn out not only the guy got out quietly but continues to write in newspapers preaching morality to others. I tried a lot of figure out how he might have escaped the law but I cant.
I am giving this example only to show that when the British government cant enforce existing laws using available evidence, you cant expect them to dig up anything new with more powers.
It is something Mahatma Gandhi pointed out years ago about the British. In one of this Satyagrahas related to Champaran farmers, Gandhiji's modest and only demand was that the British must only acknowledge that there is a problem which needs to be solved. According to Gandhiji's colonial power's unwillingness to even show empathy to people means they are essentially uninterested in the helping people with their problems.
> Turn out not only the guy got out quietly but continues to write in newspapers preaching morality to others. I tried a lot of figure out how he might have escaped the law but I cant.
So you are assuming that he "escaped the law" without having found any evidence. The articles I've found indicates that a bail amount was set. He probably met it, pending trial. Unless you've seen him out and about outside of the UK, you have no basis for assuming he escaped anything.
It's also worth pointing out that he was arrested following a sting by a vigilante group. There's going to be all kinds of issues with chain of custody of the evidence etc. that makes this almost entirely unlike a case handled by police from the start.
Back in 2000, the UK government introduced the widely criticized "Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000".
It was even heavily criticized in the House of Lords, but still made it through to Royal Assent on the 28th July 2000. The bill started in February of the same year and was pushed through as fast as possible in order to "prevent internet crime and paedophilia".
The core criticisms [1] surrounded the inclusion of the requirement for suspects to give up encryption keys or face prison (reverse burden of proof), and the expansion of the act to allow almost any government body to snoop secretly on the public.
It was dubbed the "Snooper's Charter" [2], and here we are 16 years later and that bill is now law and abused every day by councils across the UK to snoop on people "putting their rubbish bins out on the wrong day" [3]. Seriously, I'm not making this shit up.
Make no mistake; There is little we can do within the current political framework, in order to prevent this bill from passing into law, albeit with minor amendments and other hidden little nasties that we discover later were snuck in on the quiet.
The government is playing the long game, against a public that doesn't even realise they are even supposed to be playing the game.
Meanwhile the public are more concerned that "I'm a Celebrity get me out of here" is about to start, and the tax on petrol and beer to due to rise in the next budget.
"The only way to win the game is not to play", sadly doesn't apply to this game.
>> Meanwhile the public are more concerned that "I'm a Celebrity get me out of here" is about to start, and the tax on petrol and beer to due to rise in the next budget.
First of all, "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here" doesn't start until autumn time.
In all seriousness the lack of concern by the general public surprises me especially after the high profile coverage of Edward Snowden. I spoke to someone training as a lawyer (specifically in human rights) and they'd never heard of Snowden or mass surveillance - and didn't seem to care either when I explained. That was pretty worrying.
On the other hand the decline of privacy rights has concerned me so much that I plan to retrain in Law (been in technology for about 9 years since I left high school) with the sole aim of working to maintain our privacy rights. So although not everyone cares right now (they probably will when it's too late) I'm sure there are enough people who do who are willing to do what they can to try fix this.
Part of me wants to say 'bring it on'. I once said to a copyright lobbyist that I think applies here: "Don't try to out-internet kids". Allowing police to hack into computers will start a war between law abiding citizens and police hackers. The cops cannot win that fight. Everyone will mobilize against them. Their malware will be studied and published across the planet. And it will certainly help push people away from proprietary systems in favour of f/oss.
Every side always insist the BBC is biased towards the other side.
The big issue with the BBC is not bias (I'm not saying there is none - I don't believe that is possible, but I don't think it is a major problem), it is that they're spineless: They try exceedingly hard to avoid taking a stance. Any stance. Even over relatively un-controversial things.
And that is ironically usually what causes them to be attacked as being biased, because people tend to assume that when someone isn't condemning thing they see as obviously bad, then it implies a bias rather than the absence of a stance.
As far as I can tell, the BBC article is actually quite balanced, including both sides views. And while I disagree that the new privacy concessions are sufficient, it seems that the headline is factually accurate.
What the article doesn't do, is actually try to weigh the arguments up against each other or carry out much actual journalism, by for example questioning the statements (of either side) in any remotely critical fashion and arriving at a conclusion.
It's not separate from the state. When push comes to shove the establishment tell the BBC what to do.
We've seen this in the 2011 riots. We've seen this in the 2008 banking crisis and subsequent massive wealth transfers. Now we see it with state surveillance.
The BBC is on your side until it matters. I don't care what their charter says, I look at what they do.
The UK is preparing. As living standards continue to fall state surveillance will become more and more necessary to try and suppress alternate views. How long before posting a blog on the UK's intractable deficit and massive private debt is "financial terrorism"?
To be fair, they tried standing up to "the man" once, in 2003 on the Iraq invasion. They pushed the revelations from Dr. Kelly and condemned "sexing up" of dossiers that tried to justify the war, something that is now accepted historical fact on both sides of the Atlantic.
Dr. Kelly killed himself in a field, and BBC head Greg Dyke was forced to resign and pushed in the political wilderness for a decade.
Insert the word "perceived" into that sentence and none of that matters.
Also, ignoring for the sake of argument whether this is actually true, there are numerous possible caveats:
- Living standards could be better now, but also more fragile than at any time in history.
- Average living standards could be high, but with growing extremes and a shrinking middle.
- Living standards in a historical perspective are 100% irrelevant to someone who is currently living half the lifestyle they did five years ago because their industry dried up and they have to serve food for a living.
It is certainly true that a common political tactic is to attempt to convince people that there was some time in the past when they were better off than today. Remarkably, people are far more willing to believe this (even in the face of all the data which inevitably shows it isn't true - in the UK we've been on a near-vertical climb for a century with even the recent economic messes being little more than a quiver), than they are willing to believe that things could be made better in the future.
There are plenty of places in the world where living standards are low. The UK is not one of them. If you live here, even if you are the poorest person in the country, you are rich beyond the dreams of half the population of the world.
I'm not buying into any of this "life is terrible, you should give me more" meme.
"If you live here, even if you are the poorest person in the country, you are rich beyond the dreams of half the population of the world"
Really? Have you ever been in The Work Programme? Have you ever visited a food bank? Have you ever had neighbours pleading with you for food for their children because they have no money? You can prefer to live inside of a cosy bubble of ignorance if you wish, but this is the UK in 2016.
The answer to all of your questions is approximately yes (names vary). I've also done a lot of work to address these problems when they come up, and I've read the data on the current state of the economy. How many of these things have you done?
Have you ever had people pleading with you for food/money and, instead of berating people on the internet, got them into the drugs treatment programme that they desperately needed? Have you ever got people to correctly file appeals when the jobcentre made a mistake and didn't give them the money they were entitled to? Have you ever taught people the skills they need to be productive members of society and provide for themselves?
Because I've also done all of those things on multiple occasions, and I think I have a much better sense of the problems that we face than you do. I also think that your refusal to admit these are the real problems and put work into fixing them is one of the major reasons why we still have them. It's very easy to say "I want more, it's not fair", and much harder to figure out why things aren't working when there's plenty for everybody and get something done about that.
So, this is true, and after acknowledging this. I find it very hard to buy into the stuff about the 1%, because to the rest of the world I am (and my kids are) the 1%.
However, having said that, I do notice the "shut up, you're doing better than before" argument is only ever used on those at the bottom of the heap asking for more equality. No one ever seems to use it to respond to people complaining about progressive tax rates on the wealthy for example, despite it being even more true for them.
I've dug into this in more detail in some past political events, and I've always found that the people making the strongest "there should be more for me" demands had incomes above the median. I never had much sympathy for them, and I do call them on it when I see them.
I can't really do it here, unless people in this thread would care to share what they earn.
> The main flaw in your argument is that living standards are better than at any time in history before now.
For some, yes.
For some, and that growing inequality is the problem. Food bank use and rough sleeping are rising steeply over the last few yeas, and that's not a problem of perception, it is based in fact. But everything is fine for me, so what's the problem, right?
Food bank use is increasing out of certain social classes realising there is free food on offer. Rough sleeping is by choice in the UK; if they want a homeless shelter there are plenty on offer, all government funded. All they have to do is walk into their local council social services and they will be dealt with. As usual, modern leftist opinions love to attack the "welfare state" that they originally helped to build. As though it is crumbling away. It isn't...
Do you have some evidence to support any of this? Sounds like a collection of easy to repeat lines...
I say this because I have actually tried to get a homeless person into a shelter once, only to be told that half them were closed down due to funding cuts, the rest needed a lengthy referral procedure or a £20 payment for the night - aka a normal hostel.
And all this was possible because I had a smartphone on me with internet to look up and call various places. A homeless person without such access has very little chance!
Several of our customers (IT projects) are organisations for homeless. So I can tell you they do exist. Two types of referral exist: from the council, or a walk in from the street. There are also numerous TV shows that document the process. Sometimes it is called "sheltered housing" other times "homeless hostel" and other times "emergency accommodation". It is effectively all the same thing.
Like I said "living rough" i.e. the stereotypical homeless person is basically not a real thing in the UK. They do it because they either choose to do so or have other mental or social problems that prevent them from seeking free help.
>the stereotypical homeless person is basically not a real thing in the UK. They do it because they either choose to do so or have other mental or social problems that prevent them from seeking free help.
I don't know what fantasy world you're living in, but in London homelessness is very real and very present. Go take a walk through the city at night, it's eye-opening.
I've noticed it has become considerably worse (by number of homeless) over the past year or so.
I've edited my post to include the context-- but my point stands. I just don't believe that most homeless are incapable of finding shelter, let alone choosing to be on the streets.
> Food bank use is increasing out of certain social classes realising there is free food on offer. Rough sleeping is by choice in the UK;
That is unsubstantiated opinion (to put it mildly), and does not even address the main point that these examples are intended to show: inequality is growing, and that this causes problems, or that the statement "living standards are better" is not true for many people.
While your statements might resonate with a certain mean-spirited kind of person, they don't even make logical sense - Do you really think that food bank use is increasing because "certain social classes" have found them all of a sudden? Why now? What other forces might be at play at this time that caused it to happen now not 10 years ago? Are there gourmet buffets on offer that weren't there before perhaps?
I also remember reading that during the Alistair Campbell days that the Today program on Radio 4 would get a call immediately they said anything critical of the Blair government. However, these calls would often be answered by someone senior picking up the phone, listening politely for a short while and then the caller (who was presumably calling from No 10) being told to "F*ck Off".
The BBC is very much a state run organization. The people who ultimately decide what happens to the BBC - The BBC Trust - are appointed by "queen in council", which in practice means government ministers.
As I've read today in The Telegraph, when a man is assaulted on the street UK police seek our help to identify the gang members who commited the crime. When travelling by Underground we are reminded constantly to report suspicious behavior. We are aware that today a handful of minority men police over the majority, as Noam Chomsky has put it.
But we know that policing is a costly activity, and can observe how the animals around us distribute the cost of policing to the whole swarm. One day we will study Chomsky at history class and admit that we, all the other men, are part of the police without requiring to wear a suit. And will stop this game of minority ruling over the majority. Because its us the other men that you the Government seek help from when the actual police shows their weaknesses in solving problems.
I said it the other day. The fall of the UK would be highly beneficial for the working man. They are at the heart of surveillance and at the heart of money laundering / tax avoidance globally.
I've given up fighting this. I'm at a stage now where I think that things need to get worse before British people understand how dangerous these powers are.
It would be nice if we had an effective opposition, but we don't. Not when it comes to security concerns. Corbyn's stance with trident and Stop the War means that no one, and I mean no one, can take any argument he puts forward seriously when it comes to security. The result? The government can get away with anything that has a vaguely plausible sounding justification.
The only thing that can stop them now is the media, but it really is not their job to be the opposition.
Cutting down on nuclear armament, which I presume is what you are calling out Corbyn for, is hardly something that no one could reasonably consider. You realize there are entire countries without nuclear weapons, right?
Exactly, nobody questions whether other European nations (aside from France) don't care about security.
Furthermore, if Britain did give up Trident they wouldn't be the first nuclear power to give up on nuclear weapons, South Africa did it first.
I'd suggest Japan has the right idea with regards to nuclear weapons... retain the knowledge about how to build nuclear weapons, but don't retain an active stockpile you're not going to use.
Yes we can't operate and maintain (mostly maintain) without US assistance because we have made a plan where we share that duty. If we changed our minds and decided to go alone we would could do so.
The nukes on the subs can be launched without US approval. As members of NATO we would discuss before firing under most circumstances, but that is a rather different scenario to the "UK requires US authorisation to fire nukes" being implied elsewhere.
When it comes down to brass tacks we have complete operational control of our nukes independently. That in most situations we would discuss with our allies before nuking someone does not mean our nukes are not independent, nor does that we reduce costs by sharing maintenance of nukes not in our subs with the US mean we have lost independence.
So the argument that we do not have independent control of our nukes fails.
That is a short post and doesn't make a strong argument compared to the UK's House of Commons Defence Committee saying that the UK could not maintain and operate Trident independently.
Even if the UK could theoretically launch Trident without US authorisation, they wouldn't in practice.
What would Ukraine do with nukes? Threaten to nuke Moscow? Knowing their country would become radioactive glass in response? Russia would have no reason to assume Ukraine would be insane enough to use them over losing a few regions, and so would have no reason to take them much into account.
As a side note, Ukraine actually did have nuclear weapons post-USSR. Then, Ukraine agreed to give them up, in exchange for clauses in treaties where Russia guarantees its territorial integrity.
So now, after Crimean acquisition, we know that the Russian signature in nuclear treaties is worth nothing.
Ukraine is not part of NATO the UK is this makes a difference to our defence requirements. NATO might be stronger if the UK took half the money to be spent on Trident and spent it on fighter jets (and the other half on not cutting junior doctors' salaries or cutting taxes or whatever).
What difference would that make? The party in opposition came up with the Interception Modernisation Program [0], tried to introduce ID cards, did introduce control orders [1], pushed through RIPA 'because terrorism' and then used it to surveil all and sundry, introduced the DNA register (and fought tooth and nail when ECHR declared its retention practices illegal) to name just a few of their legislative highlights.
If you're looking for pushback against Orwellian government over reach you're unlikely to find it there.
I was hoping for a few "buck your ideas up we can stop this" replies... As I said further down in the comment tree I will definitely be writing to my MP before any Commons readings of this bill.
However, I really can't see how to win this one. Both of our major political parties are seemingly totally committed to erosion of civil liberties, the security services have such a vast control already and I can't see meaningful opposition surviving the tabloid newspaper treatment. Also I know intelligent people who support this bill (and similar laws) and even more people who just don't see it as a priority.
I think that it will take a total change in public opinion for the creeping erosion of civil liberties to be reversed and I don't see that happening with our current media until British people have experienced a Statsi-like situation for themselves.
I often thought this in the past, but I found that if you stop supporting your side - the vacuum is quickly filled with the opposition. Any effort on your behalf to support your views, however little, will have a big effect.
This government has shown precious little consideration for the electorate. All our governments have a love of data and IT, despite their consistent track record of screwing up every project and not understanding it at all.
It's going to continue, probably until all the Cabinet's entire search history is found to be in the database and it's pastebin'd.
They're absolutely not going to stop, in my opinion, until something makes 62m people realise it was a silly idea. By which time, it is of course, too late.
I fear that things will get a lot worse. I am of the opinion that a free society cannot survive the effects of pervasive surveillance for long. I will of course be writing to my MP before any readings of the bill in the Commons. I expect that this will not make a difference though.
Its nothing they are not already doing! They are just looking for a way to use the methods more openly and then they can disclose evidence that usually stays hidden ("An anonymous tip brought him to our attention") in criminal trials and prosecutions.
I am giving this example only to show that when the British government cant enforce existing laws using available evidence, you cant expect them to dig up anything new with more powers.
It is something Mahatma Gandhi pointed out years ago about the British. In one of this Satyagrahas related to Champaran farmers, Gandhiji's modest and only demand was that the British must only acknowledge that there is a problem which needs to be solved. According to Gandhiji's colonial power's unwillingness to even show empathy to people means they are essentially uninterested in the helping people with their problems.
Law of Karma I guess.
[1] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/other-news/Indian-ori... [2] http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/death-of-liberalism...