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Privacy and surveillance


Deimos
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It seems to me that in the end, it all boils down to the fact of whether or not one trusts the UK Government and its agencies with all this surveillance data and DNA records and whatever else they may collect in the name of protecting us from crime and terrorism.

Call me cynical, but I do not.   Dodgy dossiers spring to mind here.

A previous poster was correct - once civil liberties have been given away or let go by default, it is extremely unlikely that we'll get them back.

Another point to consider.  Once we have biometric ID cards, we will be required to use them......everywhere.  Organisations will find it convenient to ask for them for a whole manner of things.  Using things like ID cards will leave a trail and "someone" will be able to track exactly where we have been and what we have been doing.  The same goes for road pricing - that will give data on all our journeys.  We already have something similar with mobile phone records.  These existing records are at present "bitty" and in different places.  However technology will enable all of these bits of data to be put together and stored.

Soon there will be no such thing as privacy.  Some/many will say it doesn't matter -" I've nothing to hide."  However, to me, it is the principle which is important.  Do I want the UK Government and its agencies to be able to track all my day-to-day activities etc and potentially provide this information to as yet unknown other organisations here or abroad?

No I do not.

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Dick,

I only pointed out a consequence of increased surveillance. I followed this by saying i welcome catching more criminals and advocate stricter punishments.

Please can you explain how the BBC were able to obtain the names and addresses of convicted child killers/molesters out on probation for a recent Panorama. You don't think someone in the Probation Service leaked the information do you?

Living in France i'm not a UK taxpayer so don't really care about increases in taxation.

 

 

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I personally think we would all be much more concerned if  'the authorities' French or British were not watching us all closely. Todays world is a very dangerous one, far worse than the cold war years. Crime is out of control due to widespread drug and alcohol abuse. British prisons are full up, violent crime especially towards women is increasing. A large section of the worlds population want to impose sharia law on the rest of us. I read the other day that your average heroin addict needs to commit £300,000 worth of crime a year to fuel an individual habit. Civil liberties are just that in my view, liberties for a civilised society, not the one we have to inhabit.
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Until people are educated  to think that taking drugs and binge drinking is not cool and trendy then the situation will only get worse regardless of how many CCTV cameras are installed on Britain's streets. Instead of spending billions on CCTV , a  DNA database and ID cards why not use the money to prevent crime rather than just record it and jail the offenders.
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Thibault wrote.

"It seems to me that in the end, it all boils down to the fact of whether or not one trusts the UK Government and its agencies with all this surveillance data and DNA records and whatever else they may collect in the name of protecting us from crime and terrorism."

I agree with that and, I'm sorry to say, that I don't trust the government. If it costs £300,000 per annum to fund a heroin addiction and if our society is less civilized than it was, then we should be tackling those problems. I can't see that me having a microchip passport will help; particularly when that passport can be copied with a £174 piece of equipment.

Hoddy
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[quote user="Dick Smith"]Unreasoned and unreasonable fear with no evidence to support it.

[/quote]

An overblown fear of terrorists who may not exist for example? Every

time I hear about this group or that planning to get their mits on

nuclear weapons or chemical munitions I find myself wondering why on

earth they would bother. It makes their lives too complicated. Far

simpler and just as effective in spreading fear and confusion would be

carrying out low-tech suicide bombings on half a dozen McDonalds and

suburban train stations at rush hour, as we see with depressing

regularity in Israel, Iraq and elsewhere. When the tube bombings

happened last year, I thought it was the begining of just this sort of

campaign, but it has all gone rather quiet.

It could be the good offices of MI5 preventing "them" from carrying out

the attacks, but although there are periodic arrests very few seem to

ever come to trial: notable exception this last week when Mr Barot got

life for conspiracy, but even he had not got his elegant and complex

plans off the ground, and some of them sound like the work of a

complete fantisist rather than a serious, competent terrorist. But if

there were hoards of people out there

willing to martyr themselves I'd expect to see activity of Israeli

sort,

not complex plots. Even the 9/11 killings were carried out using

basically very simple plans with relatively few components.

That groups like al-Qaeda exist and that they wish to do harm is not in

any doubt. However, I cannot help feeling that the level of threat is

being talked up by some interested parties to further other aims. MI5

is going to double in size over the next five years....

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[quote user="Dick Smith"]Salty - yes you are spied on every day (or to be less hysterical, your calls are auto-monitored for key words which would then trigger recording and an alarm) but not by your own country. That would be illegal. So the USA does ours and we do theirs.
[/quote]

Take a look at  the Intelligence Services Act 1994 , there is plenty of scope to intercept on a 'need to know basis' quite within the scope of the law.

The use of 'Big Brother' technology can and does prove beneficial not only in the tracking of criminal elements, etc, but also in the tracking of missing persons. If you hold and use a credit / debit card, a mobile phone, a peage transponder, a passport, a vehicle with built in tracking device, or simply drive a vehicle with registration plates, you can be tracked 24/7 - quite legally should the need arise !

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[quote user="Salty Sam"]

[quote user="Cassis"]I think wives are the greatest threat to privacy. [/quote]

I'm with you on that one[:D]

[/quote]

They do actually say that one of the greatest risks of being reported to the tax man (should one not be being 100% truthful) is during a divorce and by your now ex partner.

Ian

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