Privacy and the State

[scottycelt]

Certainly you can easily be spared the wearisome round, ahinton, by simply ignoring the relevant posts.

However I hope you are not suggesting that I should not respond to Pab's points simply because it may irritate you greatly?

Relax, and maybe do some composing ... I'm sure this little side-issue will be over very, very soon!

[scottycelt]

Well, this does look like an admission of 'inappropriate' spying: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24768717

Isn't this just the 'for international public consumption' bit of the process. Yes, we do spy like everyone else, it is very necessary for your safety, we may have gone a bit too far whilst doing so and we'll have a look at that!

'Management-speak' writ large ... and recognised code for NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

Am I being over-cynical ... ?

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Yes, of course it is. They're just going through the usual platitudes and in a short time it will all be back to normal, including the Chinese spying on the US.

[Mr Pee]

Ah, well, if Sir Malcolm Rifkind says something, it must be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, must it not?! If indeed "the surveillance programs used at GCHQ use algorithms to sift emails for certain words" I would feel very unsafe about that; what words? - who decides on those words? - what gets done when they're found in emails? Should I be worried when writing something about Sorabji because I mention Iran? As one wit remarked on the Sorabji forum yesterday in a context of some banter about GCHQ monitoring its activities, "thank goodness that they weren't around in Busoni's day, what with his piano concerto's hymn in praise of Allah!"

Seriously - how babyish is that kind of thing as an example of standard security procedure?

What's more worrying still, however, is Sir Malcolm's reference (I presume that you were still quoting him in this) to "all but 0.01%" of monitored emails being discarded - for two reasons. Firstly, the figure itself sounds conveniently cited so as to make it sound as low as possible - would "0.0253*%" sound quite as persuasive to some? (it seems to me to be on a par with prices like "£199.99" for a suit or "£995,000" for a city apartment). Secondly, and far worse, even if the figure of 0.01% is to be believed, discarding all but that amount means keeping one email in every ten thousand; has it occured to you just how many must therefore not be discarded? How many emails are sent every second to and from UK email addresses?


And boy, doesn't it go! I cannot even hear it now without thinking of you, Mr Pee, doubtless because you raise it more often than most! But the point is that I do have much to fear. "Having nothing to hide" literally means the abandonment of all personal privacy and the wilful sharing of every fact and figure and nook and cranny of one's life - and I doubt that even you'd want to do that, Mr Pee - but not only that, the phrase really should read "if no one, including (or pehaps especially) those who might spy on you think that you've done or thought or written something wrong, you have everyhing to fear.

Never mind - that doesn't bother you, obviously - so I can only hope that if an "enemy" nation's security services poke their unwelcome noses into your communications, you will be able to maintain your supine and smug complanceny in the face of it.

I don't know which words flag up an email and neither do you, but I would think it highly unlikely that a simple mention of the word "Iran" would be sufficient.

As for your convenient disregard of Malcolm Rifkind's words, as the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Commitee, I think it is safe to assume that he knows a darn sight more about all this than any of us. I know it's the easy option to simply dismiss everything that interferes with your view as propaganda or simple lies, but I do find it amusing that so many of the posters on this subject take everything they read in The Guardian as gospel and treat just about eveything else as poppycock.

[ahinton]

I don't know which words flag up an email and neither do you, but I would think it highly unlikely that a simple mention of the word "Iran" would be sufficient.

No, probably not but, as you say, you don't know and nor do I; it's the principle of the thing that strikes me as so infantile.

As for your convenient disregard of Malcolm Rifkind's words, as the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Commitee, I think it is safe to assume that he knows a darn sight more about all this than any of us. I know it's the easy option to simply dismiss everything that interferes with your view as propaganda or simple lies, but I do find it amusing that so many of the posters on this subject take everything they read in The Guardian as gospel and treat just about eveything else as poppycock.

Well, I for one do not do that and I am notg a regular Guardian reader (and I did not mention that newspaper in what I wrote), but whilst I'm not accusing Sir Malcolm of lying as such, I do say that his statistics are questionable but, if correct, also very worrying in that one email in 10,000 is a massive number of emails.

[ahinton]

Certainly you can easily be spared the wearisome round, ahinton, by simply ignoring the relevant posts.

Don't you mean irrelevant ones, scotty? - or is my grasp of scottyspeak still insufficient?

However I hope you are not suggesting that I should not respond to Pab's points simply because it may irritate you greatly?

No; all that is irritating (and not just to me) is the recycling of the same old wearisome non-arguments that, when scrutinised, seem to lack substance and credibility.

Relax, and maybe do some composing

Which?

I'm sure this little side-issue will be over very, very soon!

What "little side issue" is that, scotty? I must have missed it...

[scottycelt]

For goodness sake, ahinton ... practise what you preach and get back on topic!

[amateur51]

No, probably not but, as you say, you don't know and nor do I; it's the principle of the thing that strikes me as so infantile.


Well, I for one do not do that and I am notg a regular Guardian reader (and I did not mention that newspaper in what I wrote), but whilst I'm not accusing Sir Malcolm of lying as such, I do say that his statistics are questionable but, if correct, also very worrying in that one email in 10,000 is a massive number of emails.

Sir Malcolm is an experienced diplomat.Nothing he says should be taken at face value. He's an establishment man through and through.

[ahinton]

For goodness sake, ahinton ... practise what you preach and get back on topic!

I don't preach, scotty; I leave that to certain others who are far better at it than I (no names, no pack-drill and all that, naturally)....

[ahinton]

Sir Malcolm is an experienced diplomat.Nothing he says should be taken at face value. He's an establishment man through and through.

Fair comment but, as I mentioned, it would be worrying enough if his statistic on discarded emails was an untruth but perhaps even more worrying if it were the truth.

[amateur51]

Fair comment but, as I mentioned, it would be worrying enough if his statistic on discarded emails was an untruth but perhaps even more worrying if it were the truth.

It's a classic Rifkindism - not a lie but a grotesque distortion if you're foolhardy enough to take it at face value.

[amateur51]

A useful minute-by-minute summary of yesterday's surveillance debate at Westminster Hall

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/31/nsa-files-mps-debate-oversight-of-the-intelligence-services

[Mr Pee]

Sir Malcolm is an experienced diplomat.Nothing he says should be taken at face value.

Whereas all the garbage you read in The Guardian is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

[Richard Barrett]

all the garbage you read in The Guardian

"Garbage" is a rather inappropriate word for disclosures which have prompted debates at the highest political level in several different countries, don't you think?

[ahinton]

"Garbage" is a rather inappropriate word for disclosures which have prompted debates at the highest political level in several different countries, don't you think?

Well, I certainly do - but then I'm not Mr Pee...