I don't accept this argument at all, but even if it were true, it wouldn't affect my position. It is better have the odd "terrorist" attack and preserve the liberty of the subject, than to have no "terrorist" attacks by reducing the people to servitude. Of course, the public and the politicians they elect are reactionary and will sacrifice liberty in pursuit of that tiresome mantra "saving lives".
Yes, your position is honest, if eccentric.
Eccentric? It was the normal position of HMG and most people until quite recently. It probably still is, if one could cut through the Daily Mail et al bullshit. Of course, if you feel that the only way to defend ourselves against totalitarianism is to be come a totalitarianist state then you are probably beyond help.
IDS was a disaster, everyone knew at the time he would be a disaster. The only reason he was elected was that had Clarke won the Tory party would have split apart in a week.
On topic, the usual way in which leaders of the Conservative party are chosen is to enact the plot of Hamlet, where all central characters and most minor characters are disposed of bloodily, until inconsequentially one accidental bystander picks up the crown at the end.
Don't look for the candidate with the most friends, look for the candidate with the fewest enemies.
More like MacBeth.
Macbeth is much more SIndy, TSE.
Some holy angel Fly to the court of England and unfold His message ere he come, that a swift blessing May soon return to this our suffering country Under a hand accursed!
Strange really as it was Malcolm who ended up on the throne.
However much plastic bags are important to the Daily Mail,that is a good indication that this is a zombie government who has run out of ideas.The result of all this activity will be plenty of things all MPs like to do,but Tories especially at the moment,like gossiping and plotting the next leader-Osborne is bound to have his tentacles everywhere.It does not bode well for the Tories. Taking into account the 7 bars with fine ales and wines,at our expense,there surely can only be trouble ahead.As my bus stop compatriots tell me,"the devil makes work for idle hands."
With the discovery that the swooning pageboy was Viscount Aithrie, presumably one of the tabloids tomorrow will manage to headline the story "Little Lord Faint-leroy".
Except of course you couldn't substantiate it because it was a false characterization of Socrates' position. Unless of course under your forensic examination of his secret emails you have discovered that he has been lying to us consistently for the last half a decade and is actually opposed to any form of government bugging what so ever as you claimed.
OK, let's turn this round. We are agreed, I think, that you and Socrates approve of bugging people who might possibly be associated with terrorism.
Now tell me how the intelligence services are supposed to find these people in order to know they should be bugged.
Here are four names of people, who, with the benefit of hindsight, we now know should have been monitored more actively - it they had been, 52 lives could have been saved:
Mohammad Sidique Khan Shehzad Tanweer Germaine Lindsay Hasib Hussain
If I understand you correctly. you want people like that bugged (even though they had committed no obvious crime) - how the hell do you want the intelligence services to know they should be bugged?
They find them by the same methods they used for decades which involved covert surveillance but only of specific individuals under a warrant.
You are using the argument of a Culture of Fear. It is the same argument that was used to justify criminal acts including murder by security forces in Northern Ireland 'for the greater good' and it is a bankrupt argument only used by authoritarian governments and their supporters.
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
"They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
I'm following the ABB strategy for the Con leadership - Anyone but Boris.
I've been following that strategy for a long while now.
He's a great example of a 'false favorite'. You may not know who will win, but you're pretty sure the favorite's price is way too short.
May is certainly a more plausible candidate than most, and much more plausible than Boris, but it will be a while before a contest takes place. 4/1 looks about right.
I compliment the way Gill has given fairly straightforward answers to the journalist writing the article but sometimes such bluntness can be self-incriminating:
“If we hadn’t employed people from overseas, we’d have been called racist. The fact that we did employ immigrants is leading to charges of hypocrisy. But Ukip has never said it wants to stop all immigration – it wants to limit the numbers.”
Oh dear. I always said it would end in tears.
Er no. It is an entirely consistent position and only those like yourself who put politics above facts (as you yourself happily stated) would see it any other way
With the discovery that the swooning pageboy was Viscount Aithrie, presumably one of the tabloids tomorrow will manage to headline the story "Little Lord Faint-leroy".
He would be the son of the Earl of Hopetoun and grandson of the Marquess of Linlithgow. Apparently he has a twin brother.
Except of course you couldn't substantiate it because it was a false characterization of Socrates' position. Unless of course under your forensic examination of his secret emails you have discovered that he has been lying to us consistently for the last half a decade and is actually opposed to any form of government bugging what so ever as you claimed.
OK, let's turn this round. We are agreed, I think, that you and Socrates approve of bugging people who might possibly be associated with terrorism.
Now tell me how the intelligence services are supposed to find these people in order to know they should be bugged.
Here are four names of people, who, with the benefit of hindsight, we now know should have been monitored more actively - it they had been, 52 lives could have been saved:
Mohammad Sidique Khan Shehzad Tanweer Germaine Lindsay Hasib Hussain
If I understand you correctly. you want people like that bugged (even though they had committed no obvious crime) - how the hell do you want the intelligence services to know they should be bugged?
They find them by the same methods they used for decades which involved covert surveillance but only of specific individuals under a warrant.
You are using the argument of a Culture of Fear. It is the same argument that was used to justify criminal acts including murder by security forces in Northern Ireland 'for the greater good' and it is a bankrupt argument only used by authoritarian governments and their supporters.
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
"They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
- Benjamin Franklin
Indeed. I can't believe that people are communicating that much more than they did in the 1990s. They are just doing it through different mediums. Yet somehow we dealt with terrorist threats, not to mention Cold War infiltration from sophisticated super powers, without mass surveillance of innocents' private lives before.
It all comes down to a simple question: do you support the principle that people should be free from intrusive searches of they're not suspected of doing anything wrong and aren't connected to anyone that's done anything wrong?
Theresa May - weak on getting immigration numbers down, weak on handing powers over to Brussels, weak on civil liberties. She'd be an awful Tory leader.
I think you'll find that will make her a brilliant tory party leader.
She would fit in well with the nasty partys ethos.
I'm following the ABB strategy for the Con leadership - Anyone but Boris.
I've been following that strategy for a long while now.
He's a great example of a 'false favorite'. You may not know who will win, but you're pretty sure the favorite's price is way too short.
May is certainly a more plausible candidate than most, and much more plausible than Boris, but it will be a while before a contest takes place. 4/1 looks about right.
I expect that Boris Johnson's price will shorten further yet at some point. Like you, I don't expect him to win (too many enemies), but for the reckless there is the opportunity to try to take advantage of a "bigger fool" strategy. I'm not reckless.
For me, the favourite should currently be George Osborne. His stock is rising with the public and he has manoeuvred his power bloc into position.
I compliment the way Gill has given fairly straightforward answers to the journalist writing the article but sometimes such bluntness can be self-incriminating:
“If we hadn’t employed people from overseas, we’d have been called racist. The fact that we did employ immigrants is leading to charges of hypocrisy. But Ukip has never said it wants to stop all immigration – it wants to limit the numbers.”
Oh dear. I always said it would end in tears.
Er no. It is an entirely consistent position and only those like yourself who put politics above facts (as you yourself happily stated) would see it any other way
Perhaps UKIP should set up an internal bureaucracy to see if the immigrants they are using would have qualified to come into the country under their points system before they're allowed to employ them?
The idea that UKIP should have to act as if their preferred immigration system is already in place is absurd as suggesting that anyone that wants to raise taxes should have to pay an extra cheque to the exchequer or anyone that wants to cut the NHS should personally reduce their usage by X%.
"Conservative Home" "polls" are meaningless and worthless.
Plus, Cameron remains vastly more popular than the party he represents. It would be a self-defeating move for the Tories to get rid of him.
Cameron is safe whilst he can plausibly claim the keys to Downing St. If the next election denies him that, he's gone. If however he is in any position to continue in office then he does so. He will probably stand down willingly half way through the next Parliament if all goes well.
I compliment the way Gill has given fairly straightforward answers to the journalist writing the article but sometimes such bluntness can be self-incriminating:
“If we hadn’t employed people from overseas, we’d have been called racist. The fact that we did employ immigrants is leading to charges of hypocrisy. But Ukip has never said it wants to stop all immigration – it wants to limit the numbers.”
Oh dear. I always said it would end in tears.
Er no. It is an entirely consistent position and only those like yourself who put politics above facts (as you yourself happily stated) would see it any other way
Perhaps UKIP should set up an internal bureaucracy to see if the immigrants they are using would have qualified to come into the country under their points system before they're allowed to employ them?
Good idea. Might help rid the air of the rich stench of hypocrisy, and double standards.
'The idea that UKIP should have to act as if their preferred immigration system is already in place is absurd'
Rough translation - "I don't agree with X, but until the rules say otherwise, I might as well to do it anyway"
For me, the favourite should currently be George Osborne.
I used to be quite scathing of his chances but if the Tories return to Government you could see Cameron going about mid-term (he'd have been leader for ages by then) and in such a position the sitting Chancellor with a block of Parliamentary support must be a great bet to be in the final two and to win. If the Tories dont return to Government and Cameron resigns as a result then Osborne would almost certainly go down with him.
I compliment the way Gill has given fairly straightforward answers to the journalist writing the article but sometimes such bluntness can be self-incriminating:
“If we hadn’t employed people from overseas, we’d have been called racist. The fact that we did employ immigrants is leading to charges of hypocrisy. But Ukip has never said it wants to stop all immigration – it wants to limit the numbers.”
Oh dear. I always said it would end in tears.
Er no. It is an entirely consistent position and only those like yourself who put politics above facts (as you yourself happily stated) would see it any other way
Perhaps UKIP should set up an internal bureaucracy to see if the immigrants they are using would have qualified to come into the country under their points system before they're allowed to employ them?
Good idea. Might help rid the air of the rich stench of hypocrisy, and double standards.
No, that would still lie thick around the Tory party.
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
It's not an authoritarian state at all; no-one is suggesting that these power should not be legally authorised, subject to democratic control, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
Still, if you are prepared to take the honest view that you would prefer the odd tube bombing with 52 people killed and many hundreds hit with life-wrecking injuries, rather than have a computer follow the meta-data on your emails, then, as I said to LIAMT, I respect that. It's an honest view, if eccentric, and not one which any politician hoping to get elected is likely to espouse.
What is not honest is the view that the surveillance powers can be removed from the intelligence services with zero corresponding risk of increased terrorist attacks. It's a trade-off, and most voters would rather not have the terrorist attacks, thank you very much. The dishonest politicians are those who pretend there's no trade-off.
It's not an authoritarian state at all; no-one is suggesting that these power should not be legally authorised, subject to democratic control, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
How can it be subject to democratic control when it's kept secret from the people (i.e. the "demo-" bit)?
Indeed. I can't believe that people are communicating that much more than they did in the 1990s. They are just doing it through different mediums. Yet somehow we dealt with terrorist threats, not to mention Cold War infiltration from sophisticated super powers, without mass surveillance of innocents' private lives before.
Eh? You really are so naive that you don't think the intelligence services tracked telephone calls in the 1990s?
It's pretty clear that microchips in our necks with tracking devices so that the government could see where we are at all times would reduce terrorism. Would you prefer that, if it became cost effective, over the increased risk of terrorist attack?
Indeed. I can't believe that people are communicating that much more than they did in the 1990s. They are just doing it through different mediums. Yet somehow we dealt with terrorist threats, not to mention Cold War infiltration from sophisticated super powers, without mass surveillance of innocents' private lives before.
Eh? You really are so naive that you don't think the intelligence services tracked telephone calls in the 1990s?
Blimey.
Are you really so illiterate that you can't read where I said "mass surveillance"? You got this distinction a few posts ago, and you've already forgotten it again.
It's pretty clear that microchips in our necks with tracking devices so that the government could see where we are at all times would reduce terrorism. Would you prefer that, if it became cost effective, over the increased risk of terrorist attack?
They could just insert RFID chips into everyone at birth or when they enter the country. Surely that would be great for cutting crime and Catching terrorists.
After all we must do everything possible to prevent terrorism no matter what the civil liberties cost.
Indeed. I can't believe that people are communicating that much more than they did in the 1990s. They are just doing it through different mediums. Yet somehow we dealt with terrorist threats, not to mention Cold War infiltration from sophisticated super powers, without mass surveillance of innocents' private lives before.
Eh? You really are so naive that you don't think the intelligence services tracked telephone calls in the 1990s?
Blimey.
If you say "Gadaffi" 3 times do they start listening in :O ?
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
It's not an authoritarian state at all; no-one is suggesting that these power should not be legally authorised, subject to democratic control, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
Still, if you are prepared to take the honest view that you would prefer the odd tube bombing with 52 people killed and many hundreds hit with life-wrecking injuries, rather than have a computer follow the meta-data on your emails, then, as I said to LIAMT, I respect that. It's an honest view, if eccentric, and not one which any politician hoping to get elected is likely to espouse.
What is not honest is the view that the surveillance powers can be removed from the intelligence services with zero corresponding risk of increased terrorist attacks. It's a trade-off, and most voters would rather not have the terrorist attacks, thank you very much. The dishonest politicians are those who pretend there's no trade-off.
Tell you what, if all you are interested in is saving lives then why not ban alcohol? After all it is responsible for far more deaths than terrorism. Or smoking, or riding bikes, or mountain climbing, or driving cars?
[They could just insert RFID chips into everyone at birth or when they enter the country. Surely that would be great for cutting crime and Catching terrorists.]
It's catching Catholics we need to worry about - and given the way our soon to be glorious leaders wife was smiling today-
I honestly think we all don't have a worry in the world.
It's pretty clear that microchips in our necks with tracking devices so that the government could see where we are at all times would reduce terrorism. Would you prefer that, if it became cost effective, over the increased risk of terrorist attack?
At the moment, the intelligence services are supposed to be able to followed links (metadata) but not look at the contents of messages without a warrant. That's the same as having a chap note down where your letters are being sent to, but not opening them, or getting a record of your telephone calls, but not listening to them, or following you, and seeing which pub you go to. This is exactly what UK intelligence services have been doing since time immemorial; you seem to think there was a golden age when they caught terrorists by magic, but there wasn't. They have always needed to follow links in order to know where to look more closely (and, to remain within the law, at that stage they have always needed a warrant).
Of course, it may well be true that they have been exceeding their legal powers. If so, they have broken the law and should be prosecuted. But that is a separate point.
I wouldn't say he can't win, but there are better ten to one shots running at Kempton this evening.
Don't worry, I'm not betting seriously on such things. As you say, there are better bets. I have a few longshots from ages ago, now safely squared off on Betfair.
I generally don't like betting on markets of indeterminate timescale and indeterminate numbers of runners and riders (except on occasion to lay the favourite). I'm not clever enough to pick winners and I'm not stupid enough to ignore imaginative but plausible losers.
Tell you what, if all you are interested in is saving lives then why not ban alcohol? After all it is responsible for far more deaths than terrorism. Or smoking, or riding bikes, or mountain climbing, or driving cars?
After all it is a trade off.
Yes, precisely, which is why we have controls on alcohol, cars, and smoking. An even better example is remand in custody - an atrocious breach of civil liberties, since it involves jailing a legally-innocent man. According to your argument, remand in custody should be banned.
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
It's not an authoritarian state at all; no-one is suggesting that these power should not be legally authorised, subject to democratic control, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
Still, if you are prepared to take the honest view that you would prefer the odd tube bombing with 52 people killed and many hundreds hit with life-wrecking injuries, rather than have a computer follow the meta-data on your emails, then, as I said to LIAMT, I respect that. It's an honest view, if eccentric, and not one which any politician hoping to get elected is likely to espouse.
What is not honest is the view that the surveillance powers can be removed from the intelligence services with zero corresponding risk of increased terrorist attacks. It's a trade-off, and most voters would rather not have the terrorist attacks, thank you very much. The dishonest politicians are those who pretend there's no trade-off.
Tell you what, if all you are interested in is saving lives then why not ban alcohol? After all it is responsible for far more deaths than terrorism. Or smoking, or riding bikes, or mountain climbing, or driving cars?
After all it is a trade off.
Except one gets the choice as to whether to increase the risk of dying early from drinking too much or falling into a ravine, but not from being blasted into dogfood by a rucksack bomb.
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
It's not an authoritarian state at all; no-one is suggesting that these power should not be legally authorised, subject to democratic control, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
Still, if you are prepared to take the honest view that you would prefer the odd tube bombing with 52 people killed and many hundreds hit with life-wrecking injuries, rather than have a computer follow the meta-data on your emails, then, as I said to LIAMT, I respect that. It's an honest view, if eccentric, and not one which any politician hoping to get elected is likely to espouse.
What is not honest is the view that the surveillance powers can be removed from the intelligence services with zero corresponding risk of increased terrorist attacks. It's a trade-off, and most voters would rather not have the terrorist attacks, thank you very much. The dishonest politicians are those who pretend there's no trade-off.
Tell you what, if all you are interested in is saving lives then why not ban alcohol? After all it is responsible for far more deaths than terrorism. Or smoking, or riding bikes, or mountain climbing, or driving cars?
After all it is a trade off.
I stubbed my toe on an internal door in my house once, so I decided to take that fecker down off its hinges. It's all about trade offs, and I did not want to ever stub my toe again.
It's pretty clear that microchips in our necks with tracking devices so that the government could see where we are at all times would reduce terrorism. Would you prefer that, if it became cost effective, over the increased risk of terrorist attack?
At the moment, the intelligence services are supposed to be able to followed links (metadata) but not look at the contents of messages without a warrant. That's the same as having a chap note down where your letters are being sent to, but not opening them, or getting a record of your telephone calls, but not listening to them, or following you, and seeing which pub you go to. This is exactly what UK intelligence services have been doing since time immemorial; you seem to think there was a golden age when they caught terrorists by magic, but there wasn't. They have always needed to follow links in order to know where to look more closely (and, to remain within the law, at that stage they have always needed a warrant).
Of course, it may well be true that they have been exceeding their legal powers. If so, they have broken the law and should be prosecuted. But that is a separate point.
Your pub argument doesn't work at all. In that case they are looking at the people under investigation and seeing who their contacts are. They didn't collect bulk information about everyone in the country and which pubs they went to and when.
But anyway, it's irrelevant, as you know full well they're looking at the contents of messages:
[Except one gets the choice as to whether to increase the risk of dying early from drinking too much or falling into a ravine, but not from being blasted into dogfood by a rucksack bomb.]
Well, quite - Bring on the Positive V Negative Liberty debate.
And the Romanians next door munching on their croissants will go wiiild!!!
And let's have a look at some of the abuses the NSA has picked up on:
But most of the violations were a far cry from "overzealous" attempts to prevent another 9/11. While some cases are nonspecific, at least eight of the twelve involved spying on wives, girlfriends, husbands, or boyfriends. In one case, a subject "queried six email addresses belonging to a former girlfriend, a US person" on the first day he got access to the system. In another, a woman tracked a number in her husband's phone contacts and listened to his conversations because she suspected him of cheating.
In some incidents, it's not clear how the NSA was notified of the abuse; in others, it was discovered in a polygraph or reported by the offender.
Wow, that really sounds like they have a solid grip on when it's happening or not. I'm sure GCHQ will be similar.
I tend towards Mr Nabavi's position largely because I'm slightly biased against being blown up, or having parts of my anatomy used to wallpaper the inside of tube tunnels. I'm afraid that arguments against communications data being used need to be more persuasive than "but civil liberties". I am concerned as the next person about the erosion of civil liberties unnecessarily but I tend to be of the view that the liberty of being able to continue breathing in and out on a daily basis is marginally more important than any of the others. After all if you're dead it really matters not how many wonderful civil liberties you have because, being dead, you can't bloody well enjoy them.
Oh, and the content of communications isn't just webcam conversations:
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites – all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.
Your pub argument doesn't work at all. In that case they are looking at the people under investigation and seeing who their contacts are. They didn't collect bulk information about everyone in the country and which pubs they went to and when.
Maybe not, but I'm sure in the 1980s they'd have watched certain pubs and noted down details of the totally innocent people who came and had a pint there. That is basically what they are doing with the metadata links. The only difference is that, whereas thirty years ago you needed either a letter, a phone call, or a physical vist to communicate, now you can communicate (as we are doing at this very moment) electronically without even necessarily knowing in what town or even country the other party is communicating from. Of course intelligence services cannot ignore this change.
There's a great quote from Douglas Murray, in the Spectator:-
"throughout Cameron's leadership , the Conservative Party appears to have been losing patience with the people who used to vote for it. ...at some stage, and with brutal finality, it looks like the people are going to return the favour."
I tend towards Mr Nabavi's position largely because I'm slightly biased against being blown up, or having parts of my anatomy used to wallpaper the inside of tube tunnels. I'm afraid that arguments against communications data being used need to be more persuasive than "but civil liberties". I am concerned as the next person about the erosion of civil liberties unnecessarily but I tend to be of the view that the liberty of being able to continue breathing in and out on a daily basis is marginally more important than any of the others. After all if you're dead it really matters not how many wonderful civil liberties you have because, being dead, you can't bloody well enjoy them.
I am sure the same can be applied to the many more people who die as a result of someone else's drinking. Surely we should extend the precautionary principle into all areas of life.
I agree with Mr Nabavi... All this pathetic hoo ha over following the email trail is a load of bogus outrage. Both the extreme right and the extreme left howl about it which shows its probably the right thing to do. And how sad it is to see we now have an extreme right in British politics, a crypto BNP, that is as equally nasty as the extreme left.
As it happens, I knew Theresa at University - "nasty" she is not......
You're not ex-Hugh's are you?
No - met her thru the Union.....and the Edmund Burke Society, where she once led an "expulsion by the college of ex-Presidents" of a particularly tedious speaker.....
You were in the Edmund Burke as well? When were you there, if it's not too impolite to ask.
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
It's not an authoritarian state at all; no-one is suggesting that these power should not be legally authorised, subject to democratic control, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
Still, if you are prepared to take the honest view that you would prefer the odd tube bombing with 52 people killed and many hundreds hit with life-wrecking injuries, rather than have a computer follow the meta-data on your emails, then, as I said to LIAMT, I respect that. It's an honest view, if eccentric, and not one which any politician hoping to get elected is likely to espouse.
What is not honest is the view that the surveillance powers can be removed from the intelligence services with zero corresponding risk of increased terrorist attacks. It's a trade-off, and most voters would rather not have the terrorist attacks, thank you very much. The dishonest politicians are those who pretend there's no trade-off.
Tell you what, if all you are interested in is saving lives then why not ban alcohol? After all it is responsible for far more deaths than terrorism. Or smoking, or riding bikes, or mountain climbing, or driving cars?
After all it is a trade off.
Except one gets the choice as to whether to increase the risk of dying early from drinking too much or falling into a ravine, but not from being blasted into dogfood by a rucksack bomb.
One does not get a choice about being killed or injured as a result of someone elses' drinking. And yet those deaths will far outnumber those killed by terrorists in Britain each year.
I know that the EU is planning on introducing compulsory black boxes in all new cars shortly. I assume you have no objection to the government knowing where you are in your car at all times of the day and night?
And seriously, if you do not object to that then why should you be worried about an RFID chip inserted under your skin?
Oh, and the content of communications isn't just webcam conversations:
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites – all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.
I know that the EU is planning on introducing compulsory black boxes in all new cars shortly. I assume you have no objection to the government knowing where you are in your car at all times of the day and night?
It is interesting to note that there seems to be very little opposition to black boxes in cars as used by insurance companies, in return for a reduced premium. In fact I suspect they will be the norm quite soon.
I'm not saying this is a good thing, just observing a political fact of life. People ain't bothered. Maybe they should be, but they ain't.
I agree with Mr Nabavi... All this pathetic hoo ha over following the email trail is a load of bogus outrage. Both the extreme right and the extreme left howl about it which shows its probably the right thing to do. And how sad it is to see we now have an extreme right in British politics, a crypto BNP, that is as equally nasty as the extreme left.
As a non-Tory she would be my choice. Best of a bad bunch. Not really sure where she fits into the party though. She was one of the Portillistas, then there was the infamous nasty party jibe and now the self-styled tough Home secretary. That before we get onto economic policy. Who is she?
She's a former Bank of England employee (more on the operations side than policy IIRC)
She's noted for her taste in footwear, which is the hallmark of a very good Tory.
Bank of England? That's public sector -- obviously a Labour voter then (or isn't that how the logic goes?)
Its is ethos is private sector, even after Attlee nationalised it.
Indeed one of the great progressive failures was not turning the BofE into a proper public institution. Instead it largely remained as a supporter of the vested interests in the city. It used to be that the Governors were chosen from the big banks, as if poachers can become gamekeepers. To his credit Mervyn King did say he wanted people focused on public service. Whether ex-Goldman man Carney is so committed is hard to say.
One of my cousins works there: a public service ethos is a critical component of what she looks for in senior staff
I agree with Mr Nabavi... All this pathetic hoo ha over following the email trail is a load of bogus outrage. Both the extreme right and the extreme left howl about it which shows its probably the right thing to do. And how sad it is to see we now have an extreme right in British politics, a crypto BNP, that is as equally nasty as the extreme left.
Ah, another volunteer for RFID chip under the skin. Though in your case it might be tempting to add a control function as well.
I tend towards Mr Nabavi's position largely because I'm slightly biased against being blown up, or having parts of my anatomy used to wallpaper the inside of tube tunnels. I'm afraid that arguments against communications data being used need to be more persuasive than "but civil liberties". I am concerned as the next person about the erosion of civil liberties unnecessarily but I tend to be of the view that the liberty of being able to continue breathing in and out on a daily basis is marginally more important than any of the others. After all if you're dead it really matters not how many wonderful civil liberties you have because, being dead, you can't bloody well enjoy them.
I am sure the same can be applied to the many more people who die as a result of someone else's drinking. Surely we should extend the precautionary principle into all areas of life.
We do hence your liberty to drink and then get behind the wheel is curtailed, your liberty to inflict passive smoking is curtailed, your liberty to drive on your favourite side of the road is curtailed. I think those who are in essence arguing that being killed is a small price to pay to ensure nobody knows who they're communicating with might just have a tiny perspective issue.
There's a great quote from Douglas Murray, in the Spectator:-
"throughout Cameron's leadership , the Conservative Party appears to have been losing patience with the people who used to vote for it. ...at some stage, and with brutal finality, it looks like the people are going to return the favour."
That sums it all up with almost perfect pithiness.
Do Cameron, his inner team and his advisors actually realise the long-term consequences of what they've done?
Perhaps we've all got it the wrong way round: it's not that the Conservative Party will end-up ultimately absorbing the Liberal Democrats, as they continue their inexorable decline. It's that UKIP will siphon off most of the Conservatives, and the Conservative Party will shrink and end-up becoming the new orange-tinged Liberal Democrat party, once the old one has died.
I agree with Mr Nabavi... All this pathetic hoo ha over following the email trail is a load of bogus outrage. Both the extreme right and the extreme left howl about it which shows its probably the right thing to do. And how sad it is to see we now have an extreme right in British politics, a crypto BNP, that is as equally nasty as the extreme left.
Well, if only we had a party with "liberal" in its name.
I tend towards Mr Nabavi's position largely because I'm slightly biased against being blown up, or having parts of my anatomy used to wallpaper the inside of tube tunnels. I'm afraid that arguments against communications data being used need to be more persuasive than "but civil liberties". I am concerned as the next person about the erosion of civil liberties unnecessarily but I tend to be of the view that the liberty of being able to continue breathing in and out on a daily basis is marginally more important than any of the others. After all if you're dead it really matters not how many wonderful civil liberties you have because, being dead, you can't bloody well enjoy them.
I am sure the same can be applied to the many more people who die as a result of someone else's drinking. Surely we should extend the precautionary principle into all areas of life.
We do hence your liberty to drink and then get behind the wheel is curtailed, your liberty to inflict passive smoking is curtailed, your liberty to drive on your favourite side of the road is curtailed. I think those who are in essence arguing that being killed is a small price to pay to ensure nobody knows who they're communicating with might just have a tiny perspective issue.
Another volunteer for the chip. At least it will make it easier to track you all down come the revolution.
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
It's not an authoritarian state at all; no-one is suggesting that these power should not be legally authorised, subject to democratic control, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
Still, if you are prepared to take the honest view that you would prefer the odd tube bombing with 52 people killed and many hundreds hit with life-wrecking injuries, rather than have a computer follow the meta-data on your emails, then, as I said to LIAMT, I respect that. It's an honest view, if eccentric, and not one which any politician hoping to get elected is likely to espouse.
What is not honest is the view that the surveillance powers can be removed from the intelligence services with zero corresponding risk of increased terrorist attacks. It's a trade-off, and most voters would rather not have the terrorist attacks, thank you very much. The dishonest politicians are those who pretend there's no trade-off.
Tell you what, if all you are interested in is saving lives then why not ban alcohol? After all it is responsible for far more deaths than terrorism. Or smoking, or riding bikes, or mountain climbing, or driving cars?
After all it is a trade off.
Except one gets the choice as to whether to increase the risk of dying early from drinking too much or falling into a ravine, but not from being blasted into dogfood by a rucksack bomb.
One does not get a choice about being killed or injured as a result of someone elses' drinking. And yet those deaths will far outnumber those killed by terrorists in Britain each year.
I know that the EU is planning on introducing compulsory black boxes in all new cars shortly. I assume you have no objection to the government knowing where you are in your car at all times of the day and night?
And seriously, if you do not object to that then why should you be worried about an RFID chip inserted under your skin?
Funnily enough, I draw the line at being tracked, but if GCHQ want to sniff my email, let them get on with it.
You're muddling up various arguments now; my attention drifted when you introduced the EU into the discussion.
As for safeguarding information, I'd be more worried about the abuse of privacy within the NHS, local authorities etc than the intelligence services.
Your pub argument doesn't work at all. In that case they are looking at the people under investigation and seeing who their contacts are. They didn't collect bulk information about everyone in the country and which pubs they went to and when.
Maybe not, but I'm sure in the 1980s they'd have watched certain pubs and noted down details of the totally innocent people who came and had a pint there. That is basically what they are doing with the metadata links. The only difference is that, whereas thirty years ago you needed either a letter, a phone call, or a physical vist to communicate, now you can communicate (as we are doing at this very moment) electronically without even necessarily knowing in what town or even country the other party is communicating from. Of course intelligence service cannot ignore this change.
Yes, but you can get this electronically by staking out the electronic equivalent to a terrorist-connected pub by staking out terrorist-connected internet forums. Under a decent system, if there are IP addresses or usernames that are frequently connecting to them, you then get a warrant and are allowed to investigate them and their contacts.
But that's not what's happening here. Now they're allowed to look up anyone at all, regardless of what places they have been, and look into their metadata and content of communications - not just the equivalent of pub meetings, but letters between husband and wife. And do it to huge numbers of people with a few clicks, rather than investing the time on those that you need to justify the expense for.
I tend towards Mr Nabavi's position largely because I'm slightly biased against being blown up, or having parts of my anatomy used to wallpaper the inside of tube tunnels. I'm afraid that arguments against communications data being used need to be more persuasive than "but civil liberties". I am concerned as the next person about the erosion of civil liberties unnecessarily but I tend to be of the view that the liberty of being able to continue breathing in and out on a daily basis is marginally more important than any of the others. After all if you're dead it really matters not how many wonderful civil liberties you have because, being dead, you can't bloody well enjoy them.
The logical conclusion to this position is that there is no breach of liberty too great if a policy can be shown to reduce the risk to human life. (Even that last bit only applies in the intellectual case, because there hasn't been a case made that lives have been saved by trawling through innocent people's emails.)
I tend towards Mr Nabavi's position largely because I'm slightly biased against being blown up, or having parts of my anatomy used to wallpaper the inside of tube tunnels. I'm afraid that arguments against communications data being used need to be more persuasive than "but civil liberties". I am concerned as the next person about the erosion of civil liberties unnecessarily but I tend to be of the view that the liberty of being able to continue breathing in and out on a daily basis is marginally more important than any of the others. After all if you're dead it really matters not how many wonderful civil liberties you have because, being dead, you can't bloody well enjoy them.
I am sure the same can be applied to the many more people who die as a result of someone else's drinking. Surely we should extend the precautionary principle into all areas of life.
We do hence your liberty to drink and then get behind the wheel is curtailed, your liberty to inflict passive smoking is curtailed, your liberty to drive on your favourite side of the road is curtailed. I think those who are in essence arguing that being killed is a small price to pay to ensure nobody knows who they're communicating with might just have a tiny perspective issue.
It rather begs the question of whether all this surveillance is effective. We can see when it fails, of course, as on the 7/7 tube bombings. Is there a danger of the MI5/GCHQ not seeing the wood for the trees? If they are keeping tabs on everyone, perhaps that is a distraction from the real baddies.
Assuming as all sane people must, that the Tories win the general election Cameron will remain leader, and if not, then why would May want to spend five years in opposition. If the Tories were to lose them according to the scale Cameron should still stay on. Churchill Wilson and Heath did not resign because of a simple matter of losing an election. The country needs a broadly moderate broadly centrist leader of the Tory party. Osborne will get an IMFish job and go on to rule the world. If Boris was so keen to lead the Tories why did he become Mayor of London? Next PM...? That pakistani bus drivers son from Rochdale. A simple fact which tells you what a wonderful political party the tory party is and remains. God bless it. Everyone should get on their bended knees and thank god for the existence of the Tory party.
But that's not what's happening here. Now they're allowed to look up anyone at all, regardless of what places they have been, and look into their metadata and content of communications - not just the equivalent of pub meetings, but letters between husband and wife. And do it to huge numbers of people with a few clicks, rather than investing the time on those that you need to justify the expense for.
They are not allowed to look at the content of private communications. If they do so without a warrant, that is an illegal abuse, and of course as someone very concerned about civil liberties, I would condemn that.
On your main point, you are not being realistic. Because modern communications are so widespread and prevalent, there are just far too many links to follow to get authorisation for individual cases. Basically you need humoungous computers crunching vast amounts of data looking for patterns, to have any hope of finding the hot spots you are looking for.
Mr. F, didn't watch the Speech, but what I've heard does sound crazy. It's so subjective.
There are lots of crazy ideas about, though. The one to give people property rights without getting married if they live with someone for a few years was especially mad.
I agree with LIAMT that the "psychological cruelty" law is bonkers.
It is absolutely mental.
The bloke on Sky News that was "affected" the other day was a pathetic excuse of a man, about 60, moaning that his Dad had never said he loved him and didnt butyhim enough presents as a kid.
@DecrepitJohnL Communications data would be run through an algorithm to identify unusual patterns of communication. For most people most places the meta data would never even get looked at because it would never flag.
I tend towards Mr Nabavi's position largely because I'm slightly biased against being blown up, or having parts of my anatomy used to wallpaper the inside of tube tunnels. I'm afraid that arguments against communications data being used need to be more persuasive than "but civil liberties". I am concerned as the next person about the erosion of civil liberties unnecessarily but I tend to be of the view that the liberty of being able to continue breathing in and out on a daily basis is marginally more important than any of the others. After all if you're dead it really matters not how many wonderful civil liberties you have because, being dead, you can't bloody well enjoy them.
I am sure the same can be applied to the many more people who die as a result of someone else's drinking. Surely we should extend the precautionary principle into all areas of life.
We do hence your liberty to drink and then get behind the wheel is curtailed, your liberty to inflict passive smoking is curtailed, your liberty to drive on your favourite side of the road is curtailed. I think those who are in essence arguing that being killed is a small price to pay to ensure nobody knows who they're communicating with might just have a tiny perspective issue.
It rather begs the question of whether all this surveillance is effective. We can see when it fails, of course, as on the 7/7 tube bombings. Is there a danger of the MI5/GCHQ not seeing the wood for the trees? If they are keeping tabs on everyone, perhaps that is a distraction from the real baddies.
Mr. Isam, it also supposes a cold fish can not only not be a decent parent, but would be criminalised. It's just a moral quagmire and no place for the law to impose itself.
As is often the case, a bit more stiff upper lip and a bit less whining is the way to go.
I agree with LIAMT that the "psychological cruelty" law is bonkers.
It is absolutely mental.
The bloke on Sky News that was "affected" the other day was a pathetic excuse of a man, about 60, moaning that his Dad had never said he loved him and didnt butyhim enough presents as a kid.
A very scary law
I find myself echoing Ramsay Snow, when listening to such people "Your daddy was mean to you? Your mummy didn't appweciate you?"
It's not an authoritarian state at all; no-one is suggesting that these power should not be legally authorised, subject to democratic control, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
This argument could be used to support 90 day detention, as, in fact, it was. Liberty is about final not efficient causes. Authoritarianism can be democratically instituted, with checks and balances, and properly supervised to avoid abuses.
Yes, precisely, which is why we have controls on alcohol, cars, and smoking. An even better example is remand in custody - an atrocious breach of civil liberties, since it involves jailing a legally-innocent man. According to your argument, remand in custody should be banned.
You fundamentally misunderstand what remand in custody is about. With a few specious exceptions introduced in the last twenty years, it is about preserving the integrity of the legal process. It is not a punishment. The other point is that no one can be remanded into custody without an order of a court of record. You favour surveillance powers being subject to no judicial scrutiny whatsoever.
They are not allowed to look at the content of private communications. If they do so without a warrant, that is an illegal abuse, and of course as someone very concerned about civil liberties, I would condemn that.
Not true. I repeat again:
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites – all of which is deemed legal.
On your main point, you are not being realistic. Because modern communications are so widespread and prevalent, there are just far too many links to follow to get authorisation for individual cases. Basically you need humoungous computers crunching vast amounts of data looking for patterns, to have any hope of finding the hot spots you are looking for.
Old-fashioned communication, otherwise known as "talking" was also widespread and prevalent, yet we got by without mass collection and data mining of it. If you are doing a traditional connected-to-an-existing-suspect approach, then a terrorism suspect may have have more connections, but modern technology also means it is faster to go through them more. And you can get authorisation for suspect A's connections in one warrant - just now it will cover 500 people rather than 200 people.
As it happens, I knew Theresa at University - "nasty" she is not......
You're not ex-Hugh's are you?
No - met her thru the Union.....and the Edmund Burke Society, where she once led an "expulsion by the college of ex-Presidents" of a particularly tedious speaker.....
You were in the Edmund Burke as well? When were you there, if it's not too impolite to ask.
Around the same time as Theresa May......tho I gather it is no more, what with the poor things actually having to study these days.....I knew or was acquainted with quite a few of the cavalcade of wit & beauty.....hunky Dunky....Damian & Alicia, poor Philip Geddes who was murdered by the IRA outside Harrods.....
Comments
Some holy angel
Fly to the court of England and unfold
His message ere he come, that a swift blessing
May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accursed!
Strange really as it was Malcolm who ended up on the throne.
Taking into account the 7 bars with fine ales and wines,at our expense,there surely can only be trouble ahead.As my bus stop compatriots tell me,"the devil makes work for idle hands."
Could this be one of the property speculators Mr Jones was referring to yesterday?
You are using the argument of a Culture of Fear. It is the same argument that was used to justify criminal acts including murder by security forces in Northern Ireland 'for the greater good' and it is a bankrupt argument only used by authoritarian governments and their supporters.
Like LIAMT I would much rather live in a country where there is an infinitesimally small chance of being caught up in a terrorist act but which is still a basically free society than in the sort of authoritarian state you envisage.
"They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
- Benjamin Franklin
He's a great example of a 'false favorite'. You may not know who will win, but you're pretty sure the favorite's price is way too short.
May is certainly a more plausible candidate than most, and much more plausible than Boris, but it will be a while before a contest takes place. 4/1 looks about right.
May does seem to be on manoeuvres with the Gove/extremism letter.
Plus, Cameron remains vastly more popular than the party he represents. It would be a self-defeating move for the Tories to get rid of him.
10mg of Olanzapine to the Yessnp please
Doctors Orders
It all comes down to a simple question: do you support the principle that people should be free from intrusive searches of they're not suspected of doing anything wrong and aren't connected to anyone that's done anything wrong?
She would fit in well with the nasty partys ethos.
For me, the favourite should currently be George Osborne. His stock is rising with the public and he has manoeuvred his power bloc into position.
@DPJHodges: Nice line from Ed about his sandwich debacle.
The idea that UKIP should have to act as if their preferred immigration system is already in place is absurd as suggesting that anyone that wants to raise taxes should have to pay an extra cheque to the exchequer or anyone that wants to cut the NHS should personally reduce their usage by X%.
Live from Westminster-
15mg of the good stuff to the Yessnp please
That Is A Recommendation.
We all bow (oh, what a day)
'The idea that UKIP should have to act as if their preferred immigration system is already in place is absurd'
Rough translation - "I don't agree with X, but until the rules say otherwise, I might as well to do it anyway"
Laughable.
Still, if you are prepared to take the honest view that you would prefer the odd tube bombing with 52 people killed and many hundreds hit with life-wrecking injuries, rather than have a computer follow the meta-data on your emails, then, as I said to LIAMT, I respect that. It's an honest view, if eccentric, and not one which any politician hoping to get elected is likely to espouse.
What is not honest is the view that the surveillance powers can be removed from the intelligence services with zero corresponding risk of increased terrorist attacks. It's a trade-off, and most voters would rather not have the terrorist attacks, thank you very much. The dishonest politicians are those who pretend there's no trade-off.
A cunning ploy to re-introduce the poll tax by 90% of Scot
And you said we didn't like T!!!!
Blimey.
It's pretty clear that microchips in our necks with tracking devices so that the government could see where we are at all times would reduce terrorism. Would you prefer that, if it became cost effective, over the increased risk of terrorist attack?
After all we must do everything possible to prevent terrorism no matter what the civil liberties cost.
We don't listen to ConHome do we??
After all it is a trade off.
Osborne is generally 10/1.
I wouldn't say he can't win, but there are better ten to one shots running at Kempton this evening.
It's catching Catholics we need to worry about - and given the way our soon to be glorious leaders wife was smiling today-
I honestly think we all don't have a worry in the world.
Of course, it may well be true that they have been exceeding their legal powers. If so, they have broken the law and should be prosecuted. But that is a separate point.
I generally don't like betting on markets of indeterminate timescale and indeterminate numbers of runners and riders (except on occasion to lay the favourite). I'm not clever enough to pick winners and I'm not stupid enough to ignore imaginative but plausible losers.
=No joy in your life
You should try watching some of those bookies ads sometime.
But anyway, it's irrelevant, as you know full well they're looking at the contents of messages:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo
Thus your entire argument on this basis falls apart.
Well, quite - Bring on the Positive V Negative Liberty debate.
And the Romanians next door munching on their croissants will go wiiild!!!
But most of the violations were a far cry from "overzealous" attempts to prevent another 9/11. While some cases are nonspecific, at least eight of the twelve involved spying on wives, girlfriends, husbands, or boyfriends. In one case, a subject "queried six email addresses belonging to a former girlfriend, a US person" on the first day he got access to the system. In another, a woman tracked a number in her husband's phone contacts and listened to his conversations because she suspected him of cheating.
In some incidents, it's not clear how the NSA was notified of the abuse; in others, it was discovered in a polygraph or reported by the offender.
Wow, that really sounds like they have a solid grip on when it's happening or not. I'm sure GCHQ will be similar.
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites – all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa
Lagarde is far too sexy to be leader of the free world.
If you think of the US - they're deliberately unsexy
We've got 2 of 3(4) genuinely good looking leaders
Britain will win over the Mtv generation
How much more evidence do we need??
"throughout Cameron's leadership , the Conservative Party appears to have been losing patience with the people who used to vote for it. ...at some stage, and with brutal finality, it looks like the people are going to return the favour."
And how sad it is to see we now have an extreme right in British politics, a crypto BNP, that is as equally nasty as the extreme left.
I know that the EU is planning on introducing compulsory black boxes in all new cars shortly. I assume you have no objection to the government knowing where you are in your car at all times of the day and night?
And seriously, if you do not object to that then why should you be worried about an RFID chip inserted under your skin?
I'm not saying this is a good thing, just observing a political fact of life. People ain't bothered. Maybe they should be, but they ain't.
Do Cameron, his inner team and his advisors actually realise the long-term consequences of what they've done?
Perhaps we've all got it the wrong way round: it's not that the Conservative Party will end-up ultimately absorbing the Liberal Democrats, as they continue their inexorable decline. It's that UKIP will siphon off most of the Conservatives, and the Conservative Party will shrink and end-up becoming the new orange-tinged Liberal Democrat party, once the old one has died.
You're muddling up various arguments now; my attention drifted when you introduced the EU into the discussion.
As for safeguarding information, I'd be more worried about the abuse of privacy within the NHS, local authorities etc than the intelligence services.
But that's not what's happening here. Now they're allowed to look up anyone at all, regardless of what places they have been, and look into their metadata and content of communications - not just the equivalent of pub meetings, but letters between husband and wife. And do it to huge numbers of people with a few clicks, rather than investing the time on those that you need to justify the expense for.
Implying drunk drivers can't be better drivers. It's well past gin o clock. #fail
You have been RFID chipped.
"I generally don't like betting on markets of indeterminate timescale and indeterminate numbers of runners and riders ...."
Loosen up, Frankie! All of life's a gamble, and mostly the odds are 6 to 5 against. ;-)
It's All Greek to Me!!!!
Osborne will get an IMFish job and go on to rule the world. If Boris was so keen to lead the Tories why did he become Mayor of London?
Next PM...? That pakistani bus drivers son from Rochdale. A simple fact which tells you what a wonderful political party the tory party is and remains. God bless it. Everyone should get on their bended knees and thank god for the existence of the Tory party.
On your main point, you are not being realistic. Because modern communications are so widespread and prevalent, there are just far too many links to follow to get authorisation for individual cases. Basically you need humoungous computers crunching vast amounts of data looking for patterns, to have any hope of finding the hot spots you are looking for.
We've got the Jacobites to cope with as well y'know!!!!
There are lots of crazy ideas about, though. The one to give people property rights without getting married if they live with someone for a few years was especially mad.
The bloke on Sky News that was "affected" the other day was a pathetic excuse of a man, about 60, moaning that his Dad had never said he loved him and didnt butyhim enough presents as a kid.
A very scary law
Communications data would be run through an algorithm to identify unusual patterns of communication. For most people most places the meta data would never even get looked at because it would never flag.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22673164
We're pacing ourselves.
As is often the case, a bit more stiff upper lip and a bit less whining is the way to go.
http://politicalbookie.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/newark-day-two-on-the-front-line/
I'll make a guess at the result;
39% Cons
30% UKIP
16% Labour
5% Paul Baggaley (Ind)
4% Lib Dems
3% Greens
55% Turnout.
I notice the women have started playing the tennis again so I'll see you all later-
Any Scottish posters should note that they should somehow, non-conventionally, be able to watch the England game at 8pm tonight.
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites – all of which is deemed legal. Old-fashioned communication, otherwise known as "talking" was also widespread and prevalent, yet we got by without mass collection and data mining of it. If you are doing a traditional connected-to-an-existing-suspect approach, then a terrorism suspect may have have more connections, but modern technology also means it is faster to go through them more. And you can get authorisation for suspect A's connections in one warrant - just now it will cover 500 people rather than 200 people.
After her disastrous documentary appearance last week, I'm not surprised.