Privacy and the State

[Richard Barrett]

If one single innocent human life is saved as a result that is surely justified?

That would rather depend on how many single innocent human lives were lost as a result, wouldn't it?

Let's get one thing straight. Why are the US and UK governments doing this? Is it because they genuinely care about the lives of the people they govern? If they did care surely a better policy would be to stop invading and threatening other countries, and thereby creating radicalised cadres who will strike back in any way they think they can? So obviously it isn't that. It would seem reasonable to conclude that their reasons have far more to do with what they perceive as an "enemy within" - a radicalisation of those of their own citizens who see the way these governments pursue policies which increase the gap betwen rich and poor, and bail out the reckless gamblers in the financial sector while punishing ordinary people for being sick or disabled or living in the wrong part of the country, to which the alternatives are opposition parties that everyone knows would do more or less exactly the same things. As we see in Turkey, the obvious organisational conduit for any kind of real democratic opposition is the internet, and therefore it's no surprise, requiring no "paranoia", no conspiracy and no great imagination to see that this is a theatre of action these governments will do all they can to monitor.

[ahinton]

That would rather depend on how many single innocent human lives were lost as a result, wouldn't it?

Let's get one thing straight. Why are the US and UK governments doing this? Is it because they genuinely care about the lives of the people they govern? If they did care surely a better policy would be to stop invading and threatening other countries, and thereby creating radicalised cadres who will strike back in any way they think they can? So obviously it isn't that. It would seem reasonable to conclude that their reasons have far more to do with what they perceive as an "enemy within" - a radicalisation of those of their own citizens who see the way these governments pursue policies which increase the gap between rich and poor, and bail out the reckless gamblers in the financial sector while punishing ordinary people for being sick or disabled or living in the wrong part of the country, to which the alternatives are opposition parties that everyone knows would do more or less exactly the same things. As we see in Turkey, the obvious organisational conduit for any kind of real democratic opposition is the internet, and therefore it's no surprise, requiring no "paranoia", no conspiracy and no great imagination to see that this is a theatre of action these governments will do all they can to monitor.

I could not have put that better (or anything like as well, come to that!) or agreed with all of it more; thank you very much for your clear and eloquent expression here.

[ahinton]

I agree. As the Soviet bloc discovered, massive state surveillance proves progressively counterproductive - the intelligence services find that they drown in the amount of material to be processed : the haystacks get larger and larger making it more and more difficult to find the rare needle. I really don't think our security services want - or wd be capable of dealing with - massive surveillance of the population at large. They will want, as always, to focus their efforts on perceived risks. I have no idea how competent they may be at this - but I think the worry about "total state surveillance" is a boojum.

Whilst in principle I agree with what you write here, if it is the case that we all (or most of us) have our communicatoins monitored (even if only in terms of traffic records rather than full-blown recordings of content), someone will have to be responsible (or irresponsible) for processing the data collected and I simply cannot and would not think to trust anyone, however well-intentioned, to do this effectively with only genuine national security issues at the forefront of his/her concerns; I'm not referring here only to the issue of trustworthiness in dealing appropriately with such data but also to that of administrative efficiency or lack thereof (misappropriation and careless losing of data and the rest, for example)...

[MrGongGong]

No the only REAL alternative is to stick to the subject of security services internet and phone surveillance and not to go off at your usual obsessive tangent about the appalling evils in your very own make-believe world.

Yes, It's that simple ...

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

I love the bit about the "make believe" world :laugh:

The Alternative IS to be honest
but that's probably a step too far for many people (not just the men in frocks !)

[MrGongGong]

I am confident that I have nothing to fear from such activities; indeed I feel safer.

So I guess you don't have
a beard
a rucksack
an Irish accent
a disability
dark skin
a boyfriend
and so on...........

I'm sure mr Pee would feel safer if he knew that Rupert was in charge of everything :yikes:

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, thankyou to Richard Barrett for that utterly humane and lucid paragraph.

Ashamed not to have contributed sooner, I can only add my surprise at the complacent trust shown by some (rightwing?) contributors here in governments either side of the pond, and say that Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning are true modern heroes. What would we do without The Guardian?

[amateur51]

Yes, thankyou to Richard Barrett for that utterly humane and lucid paragraph.

Ashamed not to have contributed sooner, I can only add my surprise at the complacent trust shown by some (rightwing?) contributors here in governments either side of the pond, and say that Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning are true modern heroes. What would we do without The Guardian?

Well said, jlw :ok:

[ahinton]

Quite right. I find the most surprising thing about these "revelations" is that so many people are surprised by them.

Yes, that surprise is indeed surprising.

I have no objection to the state monitoring the internet and social networking sites. If they weren't, they wouldn't be doing their job properly. And I do not share the paranoia exhibited by some here.

Once again, leaving aside the questionable appropriateness of the use of the term "paranoia" here, if the majority of these sites comprises people obsessively telling all about their private lives as a matter of choice, why on earth would the security organisations be interested? "Terrorists" don't exactly opt to bare their souls and intentions on social networking sites, do they?! - for, if they did, they'd surely be utterly stupid and self-defeating!

I am confident that I have nothing to fear from such activities; indeed I feel safer.

Well, I am absolutely not confident of any such thing and do not feel at all "safer", yet I am unaware that anyone would seek reasonably to describe me as an ambitious (or indeed any kind of) terrorist! It's just that, like most of us (if we're being honest) cannot possibly claim with any honesty that I have never done anything "wrong"...

[ahinton]

So I guess you don't have
a beard
a rucksack
an Irish accent
a disability
dark skin
a boyfriend
and so on...........

I'm sure mr Pee would feel safer if he knew that Rupert was in charge of everything :yikes:

Well, that would presumably be nice and convenient for him but, if the majority of us would not share his sense of safe feeling, what good would that do in general terms? As it happens - and, for the record and for what it may or may not be worth - I happen to possess only the first of the things that you list above, yet that fact does nothing whatsoever to make me feel any "safer" in terms of what's going on and being discussed.

[teamsaint]

So I guess you don't have
a beard
a rucksack
an Irish accent
a disability
dark skin
a boyfriend
and so on...........

I'm sure mr Pee would feel safer if he knew that Rupert was in charge of everything :yikes:

well rupert may not be in charge, but he must surely be close to those who ARE in charge of everything.

[scottycelt]

That would rather depend on how many single innocent human lives were lost as a result, wouldn't it?

Let's get one thing straight. Why are the US and UK governments doing this? Is it because they genuinely care about the lives of the people they govern? If they did care surely a better policy would be to stop invading and threatening other countries, and thereby creating radicalised cadres who will strike back in any way they think they can? So obviously it isn't that. It would seem reasonable to conclude that their reasons have far more to do with what they perceive as an "enemy within" - a radicalisation of those of their own citizens who see the way these governments pursue policies which increase the gap betwen rich and poor, and bail out the reckless gamblers in the financial sector while punishing ordinary people for being sick or disabled or living in the wrong part of the country, to which the alternatives are opposition parties that everyone knows would do more or less exactly the same things. As we see in Turkey, the obvious organisational conduit for any kind of real democratic opposition is the internet, and therefore it's no surprise, requiring no "paranoia", no conspiracy and no great imagination to see that this is a theatre of action these governments will do all they can to monitor.

Of course national security services will monitor all sorts of things in every country in the world, do you honestly expect them to do otherwise? That's their job. Are you suggesting that because George Bush & Tony Blair embarked on an invasion of Iraq our security services should do nothing to prevent a massacre of innocent civilians in the UK? The average Joe and Joanne don't give a damn about politics and your Marxist sympathies.

You may as well claim that Neville Chamberlain was responsible for all the civilian deaths in bombed-out London by declaring war on Nazi Germany ... :erm:

[amateur51]

Of course national security services will monitor all sorts of things in every country in the world, do you honestly expect them to do otherwise? That's their job. Are you suggesting that because George Bush & Tony Blair embarked on an invasion of Iraq our security services should do nothing to prevent a massacre of innocent civilians in the UK? The average Joe and Joanne doesn't give a damn about politics and your Marxist sympathies.

You may as well claim that Neville Chamberlain was responsible for all the civilian deaths in bombed-out London by declaring war on Nazi Germany ... :erm:

You do realise that in Pakistan and Afghanistan some people regard the democratically elected governments of those countries as being responsible for the murder of hundreds of 'innnocent civilians', don't you? And as far these people in Pakistan and Afghanistan are concerned, the citizens of USA and UK are complicit in these killings because we elected these governments and so we have blood on our hands too.

It may be distasteful for you to acknowledge this, but that is what is driving this 'terrorism'. Snooping on them will not stop it; quitting Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Muslim lands may be a step in the right direction.

[Richard Barrett]

That's their job.

Indeed it is, but not all jobs serve a useful purpose.

The issue I was addressing is what the function of that job is, and why it is extending itself so aggressively into the domain of electronic communications. As I said, if the US and UK governments were serious about preventing a massacre of their citizens they would stop those invasions and threats, they would stop supporting totalitarian regimes like those of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and they would use their economic power instead (especially the US) to reverse Israel's oppression of the people of Palestine. Then, not only would the reasons for such attacks case to exist (since these issues are the reasons almost always explicitly given for terrorist attacks from those quarters, even though we are asked to believe that the "real" reasons have to do with religion), but the people of those lands, who are of course just as important as American and British citizens, might at last be able to enjoy the peaceful lives they (like everyone else) deserve.

[amateur51]

David Blunkett has urged the government to review the law on the oversight of intelligence agencies in order to strengthen ministerial scrutiny of information on UK citizens provided by US intelligence agencies.

During a Commons debate William Hague, the foreign secretary, insisted British laws did not allow for "indiscriminate trawling" for information.

But, in probably the most telling contribution in the hour-long exchanges, Blunkett, the former home secretary, asked: "Can we take a closer look at how other agencies, including the National Security Agency and our friends and colleagues in the US, use material gathered from network and service providers, and offer it, rather than having it sought from them, in a way that makes authorisation extremely difficult?"

As a former home secretary, Blunkett will be fully briefed on relations between the UK and US agencies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/10/david-blunkett-review-intelligence-oversight-law?INTCMP=SRi

I didn't pick that up in the 17:00 BBC radio news :erm:

[amateur51]

Daniel Ellsberg is a former US military analyst who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers, which revealed how the US public had been misled about the Vietnam war.

Here is his assessment of the importance of Snowden's leaks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-united-stasi-america