Privacy and the State

[amateur51]

All links from the Guardian, even the "international oprinion" one, except for David Aaronovitch who shares that paper's political views- he may even write for it. I wouldn't know, because I don't read the paper, although with the amount of Grauniad links that Amateur posts up here there's probably no need.....

Is there really any point in posting these endless links from The Guardian? Of course they are all going to support that paper's reckless decision to publish this material.

What else would one expect?

If Viz has an opinion on this topic, you're welcome to share it here.

[amateur51]

I dare the FA is a wonderful organ. But since your side have rejected various opinions, including two Home Secretaries, and various others, with no attempt whatsoever to discuss or dissect their writings, why on earth should we start to consider opinions posted from your side? Just because, eventually, someone says Snowden is a saint - well if you wait long enough some idiot will come along with the goods.

As for your last paragraph, I thought we'd demonstrated various effects of the Guardians (et al) revelations? Civilisation hasn't ended, there's no socialist revolution as a result of Snowden (darn) but we have heard of people's lives being put at risk.

I cannot see how any further discussion of this topic will be useful until or if the situation develops.

You clearly don't know much about Snowden's politics, Inspector.

[amateur51]

To you, perhaps - but then, to others, the use of such devices to for the purposes intended by those who control them is the common factor that you appear to omit to notice in your perception that they're "completely different"; using these or any other devices to kill and/or main people and damage property is obviously more devastating in its outcome, but this is a matter of degree and not one of black and white.

Particularly when the Americans use them in such a way that they terrorise, maim and kill innocent citizens of two nations who are supposed to be America's allies.

[amateur51]

I'm rather surprised that you've posted the link to this

He posted it because the headline suits his case. I don't believe for one moment that he got as far as the commentary. They don't have that sort of thing in 'Viz'

[Mr Pee]

It almost entirely undermines the very name of that newspaper, does it not?

Why? Because it prints a freely expressed opinion? Would it only be independent if it published views with which you agree?

And of course the comments below are negative. They're from Independent readers, who, a bit like Guardian readers, don't like to be occasionally reminded that they might be wrong.

[Mr Pee]

He posted it because the headline suits his case. I don't believe for one moment that he got as far as the commentary. They don't have that sort of thing in 'Viz'

I posted it because it makes a change from your un-ending succession of links to The Guardian, and because I happen to agree with the content. And this was from a newspaper that is more to the Guardian side of the political spectrum.

By the way, I haven't glanced at a copy of 'Viz' for about 20 years. I do remember finding it quite amusing back then. I have no idea what it is like now.

[amateur51]

I haven't glanced at a copy of 'Viz' for about 20 years.

Why are you suddenly convinced I'm a reader of that amusing publication?

I'd have sworn that you've posted from it on here.

[Mr Pee]

I'd have sworn that you've posted from it on here.

If you can find that, feel free to link to it.

[amateur51]

If you can find that, feel free to link to it.

If only we had a decent search facility ...

Being a gentleman I'll accept your assertion about your not reading 'Viz'

[Richard Barrett]

Being a gentleman I'll accept your assertion about your not reading 'Viz'

You're so gullible - you must be a Guardian reder.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Those Home Secretaries' opinions are their opinions, just as those of others who disagree with them are theirs; what's so unacceptable or lacking in credibility about reading the opinions of both sides and forming opinions of one's own? I'll tell you want's wrong with it - it's when the resulting opinions happen not to coincide with yours and those who think as you do - that's all.

That's very, very good Hinton. Well done. Have a gold star. Except that's what I was saying in #795. Still, you got there in the end.

[amateur51]

Well what do you know? Last week the individuals and state institutions that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo about state secrecy mounted a concerted effort to denigrate the professionalism of the newspaper's journalists from the editor Alan Rusbridger downwards over the way that the Guardian had acted over Edward Snowden's revelations

As part of this Andrew Parker, the Director-General of the British Security Service, the United Kingdom's domestic security and counter-intelligence service, made headlines with a speech in which he said that his judgement was that greater scrutiny and more transparency would affect the ability of MI5, GCHQ and MI6 to do their work. Parker also claimed that stories about GCHQ's mass surveillance programmes had been "a gift to terrorists", and that there was no need for more rigorous oversight.

In tonight's London Evening Standard (other news outlets are available) the front page reads:

"Major London terror plot' foiled by police in dramatic armed raids across the capital"

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/major-london-terror-plot-foiled-by-police-in-dramatic-armed-raids-across-the-capital-8878452.html

The article begins:

"Police smashed a suspected Islamist terror plot to attack London after four men were held by heavily-armed officers.

The Met acted on intelligence that the men may have had access to firearms, prompting fears of an attack similar to the Kenyan mall atrocity."

Nicely done.

However further down, the tale slips a bit:

"The men are understood to have been under surveillance by police and MI5 for some time. Senior officers ordered the simultaneous arrests in the interests of public safety."

That 'understood' implies that this story has been fed to the paper by the Met.

The lead article ends with a bit of a giveaway:

"Last week Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, warned that Islamist extremists in the UK see the British public as a legitimate target for attacks. A Met spokeswoman said: “Public safety remains our overriding concern.”

So the decision to arrest these men might have been linked to Parker's speech? [oh for an emoticon!]

However, all is not plain sailing for Mr Parker, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Mr Jack Straw, and the Met ...

This afternoon Lord Macdonald QC, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, launched a strident attack on the head of MI5 for using "foolish self-serving rhetoric" to resist legitimate calls for Britain's intelligence agencies to face more scrutiny in the face of revelations about their surveillance capabilities.

Lord Macdonald said it was wrong for Andrew Parker and other senior figures in the intelligence community to argue that greater scrutiny and more transparency would affect the ability of MI5, GCHQ and MI6 to do their work.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/14/snowden-leaks-mi5-chief-rhetoric-dpp

The article continues:

"The lawyer added that the disclosures from the whistleblower Edward Snowden had revealed "the sickly character" of the UK's current scrutiny regime, which needed an overhaul.

In his sharpest remarks, Macdonald said: "Worst of all has been the argument, heavily deployed in recent days, including by Sir Malcolm himself, that any more daylight than we currently enjoy simply assists the nation's enemies.

"Andrew Parker, the new director general of MI5, should be slower to employ this foolish, self-serving rhetoric, which naively begs a perfectly legitimate question: how should we ensure that those privileged to be granted special powers to intrude into everything that is private, serve a real public interest, rather than the dangerously false god of securitisation for its own sake?"

Ouch!

Oh dear - back to the drawing board, Sir Malcolm, Mr Parker et al ...

Meanwhile four men who are presumably being regarded as innocent until proved guilty are being held by the Met on suspicion etc. I do hope that they have been given access to some damned good lawyers.

[ahinton]

That's very, very good Hinton.

I don't know what is as you describe it here. Have you been listening to any of my work? Surely not!

[Richard Barrett]

And here comes Lord Blencathra of somewhere or other, a Tory peer and (as David Maclean) former Home Office minister:

""We dislike leaks. Yes, we disapprove in many ways of what the Guardian has done, but at the same time we are deeply, deeply uneasy about what has been going on. I do not want people like Mr Snowden endangering national security. But I do not want our national security apparatus operating in what seems to me to be outside the law or on the very edge of the law. Or if it is just within the law, certainly without parliament knowing. Many of us are happy to have certain information collected by the state but, by God, we've a right to know the parameters under which they are operating.(...) Doing a deal with American security services to share information they have lifted about Brits I think is something the British public, through parliament, should either stop or consent to." And "The Cambridge spies were revealing information that could have brought down the whole British government, the western world, nuclear secrets, the whole shooting match. To try and paint Snowden into the same box as Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt is just outrageous."

[Mr Pee]

Amateur, your paranoia and complacency has reached new levels of absurdity with your latest post. You are taking the arrest of suspected terrorists, who, as you say, have been under surveillance for some time, and interpreting the reporting of that as some sort of plot to undermine your favourite newspaper? You choose to assume that the arrests are linked to to Andrew Parker's recent speech, an allegation for which you have no proof whatsoever, and one that is based entirely on your own deluded conspiracy theories.

Perhaps you think that national security should be sacrificed so that Alan Rusbridger can sleep easy in his bed.

You then go on, yet again, to quote more self- justifying guff from that paper, as if it has any validity at all in the current climate.

I notice you have edited your post, for a "trypo" as you tiresomely keep calling them.

Do us- and your credibility- a favour and just delete the whole the whole thing. Of all the nonsense you've posted on the subject, this really takes the biscuit.