So what we all knew has been confirmed. A poster has been using various different names to troll, and accusing anyone who rumbled of stalking or being obsessed. Similar to how a teenage girl flirts then pretends not to understand why she is getting attention.
When I pointed out almost a year ago this was happening, Mike emailed me to warn that accusing new posters of being old ones was something that could result in a ban.
It was also said that anyone using more than one account would be banned.
As the truth is now known, and I was right all along, surely the person involved should be banned?
Why the hell do you care? You also have had two names Sam and iSam. It's not illegal as fas as I know.
As I said, if your only two accounts were Bobajob and Bobajob_ or whatever it wouldn't matter.. it s that you are also THeLAstBoyScout, BobaFett, HanDodges etc that is the problem
I only got a new account because the old login failed, and never tried to pretend that both were not me
Why do you care AT ALL? If you came back as the Giant_Pink_Panda it wouldn't make any difference to my life in any way whatsoever.
As I say, I am happy to offer the olive branch (again) and put it behind us. Do you accept?
Doesn't matter to me in the slightest what makes any difference to your life. As I think you are a complete idiot, that's hardly a convincing argument for me to change my way is it?
It's not a case of accepting anything. We now know that you are deceitful and dishonest, that will do for me, and I am prepared to leave it at that for now.
Okay – I think you are over-reacting massively – AFAIK I never never actually denied being Scout or BobaFett except perhaps in clear jest. After all BobaFett and TLBS both contained a massive clue didn't they – in their names? That was intentional. It was a bit of fun.
Nevertheless, your intense dislike for me upsets me – and disturbs me, a lot. Coupled with your threats and sentiments in the past, it makes me think, with regret, that I cannot safely post here again under any name. So I will resign from posting under any name.
Good luck with the political ambitions. I'll look out for your name during the campaign and might introduce myself. You'll never know it is me – and you might even think I'm a decent bloke!
Come come BobaBoyScoutFettJob (i)Sam has only ever called you out on posting under different names and he was proved right.
What on earth is the link between TLBS and Bobafett though ?
If I wanted to plot something unlawful with a third party I wouldn't use email now, and certainly not in the future. I would meet face-to-face, or call with a throw away SIMM, or send a letter. If I really had to send an online communication I would encrypt it, and probably upload the file to an online file sharing service, its not rocket science, its even in Tom Clancy novels.
Next year all of Gmail is going to be encrypted, so which emails are you proposing the ISP shows to the security services.
Doesn't Google already scan the content of Gmail messages for commercial purposes? No-one seems to care about that, for some reason I've never understood.
On the point about avoiding interception, yes you are right that it is easy (or seems easy, I don't know what capabilities the spooks have). That, though, isn't the point - it relates to those who have already got to the stage of plotting something unlawful, and assumes they don't make mistakes. Intelligence is about picking up the little signs which point you in the direction of where to look. Those little signs won't be so easily kept secure and encrypted.
Are clairvoyance and reading all the emails the only possibilities here? How did the police used to catch criminals before they had a vast surveillance apparatus?
In much the same way, allowing for the technology differences. They kept a watch on dubious pubs, they intercepted letters (theoretically with warrants, although I suspect that was honoured much in the breach in the mythical good old days of civil liberties), they tracked phone call records, they accessed bank records.
Did they read all the letters looking for something suspicious? Did they require the Royal Mail to do this, which is what Rifkind is suggesting?
BTW I love the way you're trying to wave away the fact that so much of current surveillance is done without warrants by suggesting the legal requirement for warrants has always been ignored in the past. While you still seem to think we can trust the same people not to run rings around democratic and judicial oversight the way they always have before.
I have only ever thad one identity (except for a single post as the Ghost of Brian Clough which was just for a lark, young man!).
Bobajobafettboyscout was hardly hidden from those who chose to look. Would have been more fun if he had - maybe if one had been a psychotic cyberNat....?
If I wanted to plot something unlawful with a third party I wouldn't use email now, and certainly not in the future. I would meet face-to-face, or call with a throw away SIMM, or send a letter. If I really had to send an online communication I would encrypt it, and probably upload the file to an online file sharing service, its not rocket science, its even in Tom Clancy novels.
Next year all of Gmail is going to be encrypted, so which emails are you proposing the ISP shows to the security services.
Doesn't Google already scan the content of Gmail messages for commercial purposes? No-one seems to care about that, for some reason I've never understood.
On the point about avoiding interception, yes you are right that it is easy (or seems easy, I don't know what capabilities the spooks have). That, though, isn't the point - it relates to those who have already got to the stage of plotting something unlawful, and assumes they don't make mistakes. Intelligence is about picking up the little signs which point you in the direction of where to look. Those little signs won't be so easily kept secure and encrypted.
Google aren't going to use their scanning to fine you because you didn't fill your bins properly, councils using powers obtained under RIPA which was supposed to be only for counter-terrorism have done that. Anyone fancy a Green government with carte-blanche email monitoring capabilities.
Otherwise I agree completely. If there is reason to suspect someone is up to no good, I am sure spooks can read anything they want given a little time, and rightly so. The key words there are "reason to suspect", not go on a fishing expedition through the emails of 50 million people, because it's neither proportionate nor realistic, and it's too easy to avoid if you are serious - mostly by not using email.
Given that this is the official testimony / record of events then I think the Grand Jury made the right call. Not that that will do anything at all to advance race relations in the USA.
That seems to mainly be one side's testimony.
My favourite bit is where the cop says he fired blind with his head turned away not knowing where the gun was pointing
BTW I love the way you're trying to wave away the fact that so much of current surveillance is done without warrants by suggesting the legal requirement for warrants has always been ignored in the past.
Sorry, my tolerance of stupidity is not very high, so when I see people apparently in all seriousness claiming that there was some golden age of civil liberties in the past, which has been traduced by this government, I feel obliged to point out it's a load of cobblers.
@Richard_Nabavi Yes Richard, only the "left" infringes liberties out of pure malice,. The "right" does it out of a paternalistic care for the well being of the state.
As a poster on here - intermittently - since 2004, I am disappointed that its USP of informed, strongly held, but respectful posts has been lost in the past two years. Please stick around, Bob. The yobs must not win on one of the few internet comment sites that is genuinely worth reading.
Sorry, my tolerance of stupidity is not very high, so when I see people apparently in all seriousness claiming that there was some golden age of civil liberties in the past, which has been traduced by this government, I feel obliged to point out it's a load of cobblers.
Come off it, no government of this country before, ever, even when we were at war proposed opening and reading everyone's mail, that is precisely what this proposal suggests, only its worse because it suggests the ISP read it and reports it if they find it suspicious, not the security services reading it.
What is clear is that the one party which could have made a difference was the company on whose system the exchange took place. However, this company does not regard themselves as under any obligation to ensure that they identify such threats, or to report them to the authorities.
Its also technically illiterate, my ISP can't read my mail, its point to point encrypted with my email provider, just like most webmail services.
@Richard_Nabavi Yes Richard, only the "left" infringes liberties out of pure malice,. The "right" does it out of a paternalistic care for the well being of the state.
What are you going on about? I've made absolutely no comment about left or right on this, for the very good reason that there isn't any left/right divide: British governments of all hues have taken similar position on this for at least a century.
Oh - and I did explicitly praise the last Labour government a week or two ago for the way they set up the regulatory oversight of the intelligence services. It's one thing they got right (and the oversight has been further strengthened by the coalition).
Sorry, my tolerance of stupidity is not very high, so when I see people apparently in all seriousness claiming that there was some golden age of civil liberties in the past, which has been traduced by this government, I feel obliged to point out it's a load of cobblers.
Come off it, no government of this country before, ever, even when we were at war proposed opening and reading everyone's mail, that is precisely what this proposal suggests, only its worse because it suggests the ISP read it and reports it i⍺f they find it suspicious, not the security services reading it.
What is clear is that the one party which could have made a difference was the company on whose system the exchange took place. However, this company does not regard themselves as under any obligation to ensure that they identify such threats, or to report them to the authorities.
Its also technically illiterate, my ISP can't read my mail, its point to point encrypted with my email provider, just like most webmail services.
You have misunderstood. He is not talking about email. The clue is in this bit:
None of the major US companies we approached proactively monitor and review suspicious content on their systems, largely relying on users to notify them of offensive or suspicious content
We’ve had enough interesting posters leaving this site recently without having any more. I do feel though that people shouldn't engage in arguments with themselves, or appear to support themselves, under another name.
I didn't! I don't think I even had a conversation with myself last night – it was just a blunder on my part using two different devices. But thanks for your support anyway – appreciated. If people want me banned I am happy to voluntarily ban myself.
Is voluntary self-banning the same as flouncing?
(But, for the record, I'm not a fan of anyone being banned. Critical mass and different perspectives are what makes a site like this work)
@Richard_Nabavi You know the point, you would whine like a whipped cur if it was a Labour government doing this. When this present government came to power, it repealed the "draconian" control orders, and is now ramping them back up again. I don't hear many complaints about this from those who were so loud about it when the last government introduced them.
Anyway, having been proven right on one score, it is satisfying to see the polling back up what I said about UKIP being most in touch with the working class
I have never ever posted on this site using various different screen names at the same time, nor have I ever made any secret of my identity when I was 'forced' to change my screen name to either save confusion, or because I was no longer able to post under my previous name!
I was originally ChrisD when I first started posting here nearly a decade ago, but those that remember the site back then will also remember that there were numerous Chris's + initial posting on the site at the time. We were asked to make it less confusing as some posters kept mixing us all up, I therefore became ChristinaD which caused a bit of amusement at the time as some posters had just assumed that I was yet another male poster until that point!
As for my last name change, that came about when I was suddenly no longer able to post on the site one day. Mike Smithson and I could not understand why I was suddenly unable to post on the site, and IIRC, it was both Robert and fitaloon who worked out what the problem was. Ironically, it was because Mike Smithson had banned a certain term being used on the site, the last three letters of my screen name also contained part of that term. Hence my enforced name change to fitalass, which considering my hubby was posting as fitaloon on the site at the time was hardly hiding my identity!!
So what we all knew has been confirmed. A poster has been using various different names to troll, and accusing anyone who rumbled of stalking or being obsessed. Similar to how a teenage girl flirts then pretends not to understand why she is getting attention.
When I pointed out almost a year ago this was happening, Mike emailed me to warn that accusing new posters of being old ones was something that could result in a ban.
It was also said that anyone using more than one account would be banned.
As the truth is now known, and I was right all along, surely the person involved should be banned?
When was that confirmed?
I have never denied that I have had two screen names. So has Fitalass (ChristinaD) and so has iSam (Sam). So have many people I should think? Who cares?
Sorry, my tolerance of stupidity is not very high, so when I see people apparently in all seriousness claiming that there was some golden age of civil liberties in the past, which has been traduced by this government, I feel obliged to point out it's a load of cobblers.
Come off it, no government of this country before, ever, even when we were at war proposed opening and reading everyone's mail, that is precisely what this proposal suggests, only its worse because it suggests the ISP read it and reports it i⍺f they find it suspicious, not the security services reading it.
What is clear is that the one party which could have made a difference was the company on whose system the exchange took place. However, this company does not regard themselves as under any obligation to ensure that they identify such threats, or to report them to the authorities.
Its also technically illiterate, my ISP can't read my mail, its point to point encrypted with my email provider, just like most webmail services.
You have misunderstood. He is not talking about email. The clue is in this bit:
None of the major US companies we approached proactively monitor and review suspicious content on their systems, largely relying on users to notify them of offensive or suspicious content
If he is talking about social media then there is not the slightest chance the companies will get involved because the DMCA Safe Harbor considerations, in order not to be liable for a users content on their network they have to have no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, infringing activity on its network - once provided with knowledge, act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the complained-of material. As soon as they make themselves aware of what their users are doing, they become liable for it under American law.
If he is talking about social media then there is not the slightest chance the companies will get involved because the DMCA Safe Harbor considerations, in order not to be liable for a users content on their network they have to have no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, infringing activity on its network - once provided with knowledge, act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the complained-of material. As soon as they make themselves aware of what their users are doing, they become liable for it under American law.
I am not a lawyer, and certainly not an expert in US law, but if that is the legal position then the US could change it. They already have the most draconian rules in place on forcing banks to tell the authorities about anything which might be suspicious. I don't see any difference in principle, do you?
The other day Cameron was saying how micro-businesses and work-from-home should be supported. Now this EU legislation is about to hammer them.
If you are VAT registered it is a pain, but manageable.
If you are currently below the VAT threshold, and sell a few ebooks (etc) to supplement your income, it will be a nightmare.
EDIT: and you need to be ready by the end of 2014.
Yes it's mad. In our business I think we will probably simply stop selling to consumers in the rest of the EU. It's a small part of what we do and not worth the hassle under the new rules even though we are of course VAT registered.
If he is talking about social media then there is not the slightest chance the companies will get involved because the DMCA Safe Harbor considerations, in order not to be liable for a users content on their network they have to have no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, infringing activity on its network - once provided with knowledge, act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the complained-of material. As soon as they make themselves aware of what their users are doing, they become liable for it under American law.
I am not a lawyer, and certainly not an expert in US law, but if that is the legal position then the US could change it. They already have the most draconian rules in place on forcing banks to tell the authorities about anything which might be suspicious. I don't see any difference in principle, do you?
No sounds fine to me, except then Rifkind shouldn't be blaming companies for complying with legal obligations.
1) every British government (or its predecessors) have read personal correspondence to the maximumpof their abilities and need. It is by no means exceptional in this.
2) technology has now expanded so rapidly that intercepting every communication is now plausible. 100 billion text emails is easy: we can now do things like intercept every CCTV feed in real time, at least in theory.
3) the problem is not getting the data, it's interpreting it
1) every British government (or its predecessors) have read personal correspondence to the maximumpof their abilities and need. It is by no means exceptional in this.
2) technology has now expanded so rapidly that intercepting every communication is now plausible. 100 billion text emails is easy: we can now do things like intercept every CCTV feed in real time, at least in theory.
3) the problem is not getting the data, it's interpreting it
1) is quite wrong. They haven't done it to the maximum of their abilities. They have been limited by judge-approved warrants. This is no longer the case. It's a move from a handful of people being under suspicion, with the government having to prove that suspicion, to mass intrusion on the entire population.
It's an ideological shift from individual liberty, with intrusions being a necessary evil in a handful of cases, to an assumption in favour of power to the state.
The other day Cameron was saying how micro-businesses and work-from-home should be supported. Now this EU legislation is about to hammer them.
If you are VAT registered it is a pain, but manageable.
If you are currently below the VAT threshold, and sell a few ebooks (etc) to supplement your income, it will be a nightmare.
EDIT: and you need to be ready by the end of 2014.
Yes it's mad. In our business I think we will probably simply stop selling to consumers in the rest of the EU. It's a small part of what we do and not worth the hassle under the new rules even though we are of course VAT registered.
Didn't it come out in the last couple of years that it's illegal to not sell to the rest of the EU if you're selling in one EU market?
1) every British government (or its predecessors) have read personal correspondence to the maximumpof their abilities and need. It is by no means exceptional in this.
2) technology has now expanded so rapidly that intercepting every communication is now plausible. 100 billion text emails is easy: we can now do things like intercept every CCTV feed in real time, at least in theory.
3) the problem is not getting the data, it's interpreting it
1) is quite wrong. They haven't done it to the maximum of their abilities. They have been limited by judge-approved warrants. This is no longer the case. It's a move from a handful of people being under suspicion, with the government having to prove that suspicion, to mass intrusion on the entire population.
It's an ideological shift from individual liberty, with intrusions being a necessary evil in a handful of cases, to an assumption in favour of power to the state.
From the poster always clamouring for a Grand National Inquisition into child abuse.
1) every British government (or its predecessors) have read personal correspondence to the maximumpof their abilities and need. It is by no means exceptional in this.
2) technology has now expanded so rapidly that intercepting every communication is now plausible. 100 billion text emails is easy: we can now do things like intercept every CCTV feed in real time, at least in theory.
3) the problem is not getting the data, it's interpreting it
1) is quite wrong. They haven't done it to the maximum of their abilities. They have been limited by judge-approved warrants. This is no longer the case. It's a move from a handful of people being under suspicion, with the government having to prove that suspicion, to mass intrusion on the entire population.
It's an ideological shift from individual liberty, with intrusions being a necessary evil in a handful of cases, to an assumption in favour of power to the state.
From the poster always clamouring for a Grand National Inquisition into child abuse.
I don't want an inquisition. I just want a proper investigation. But you're not concerned about that. You're more concerned with using outrage over thousands of child rapes not being reported to score political points on a message board.
Seriously, what sort of nasty personality must you have to do this? Life genuinely can't be a pleasant thing to go through to be so spiritually twisted. You deserve pity.
tom_watson@tom_watson·3 mins3 minutes ago Hello @IvanLewis_MP. Is it ok if I express a view about income taxes in Scotland and England? Just checking in with you first.
Cameron invested a lot of his political capital in the project but has seen no return for it.
He wasn't looking for a 'return'. He thought it was the right thing to do.
A difficult concept after New Labour, admittedly.
" it was the right thing to do"
the statement so beloved of New Labour that you don't see the irony of using it Richard.
Alan you mentioned you wouldn't be voting Tory next time. In a a sense this is a vote against the performance of the coalition. Would not a majority Tory government, albeit an unlikely scenario, be a different beast? Cameron will only have a limited shelf life even if he wins - is that a factor to consider before discarding the Tories? And finally do you really think any alternative gov't - most likely a Lab minority or even majority one will be an improvement on what we now have?
If he is talking about social media then there is not the slightest chance the companies will get involved because the DMCA Safe Harbor considerations, in order not to be liable for a users content on their network they have to have no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, infringing activity on its network - once provided with knowledge, act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the complained-of material. As soon as they make themselves aware of what their users are doing, they become liable for it under American law.
I am not a lawyer, and certainly not an expert in US law, but if that is the legal position then the US could change it. They already have the most draconian rules in place on forcing banks to tell the authorities about anything which might be suspicious. I don't see any difference in principle, do you?
US KYC is deeply insane, but I think there's a fundamental difference between money and speech. (Notoriously the Supreme Court may not agree with me about this...)
You're missing my point: I don't think he lost many votes *specifically* because of gay marriage. So looked at in isolation, it may be the right thing to do. (The analysis is complicated by the fact that many people who no longer support the Tories *also* oppose gay marriage, but I suspect that in most cases they would no longer support the Tories *regardless* of gay marriage).
To use an analogy - and don't read any labels across to any group: the GOP could reach out to Hispanics in an organised way, but in so doing lose the KKK vote. In my view - even if for 1 or 2 elections they don't have a net gain in votes - in the medium term the strategy will pay dividends
I see being harangued by a member of the ethnic minorities on Friday hasn't done much to change your rather privileged view of the world.
David Cameron fought the last election on the Big Society. A means of subcontracting the services of the State at a cheaper cost in these straitened times.
And what did the buffoon do? Attack those very organisations who are, will and have been providing those services for centuries.
So, in one fell swoop, he upset those demographically strong groups the religious, ethnic minorities and the poor.
As a long term strategy it was ridiculous. The only surprise is it has taken so little time for it all to implode.
I didn't say "maximum of abilities", I said " maximum of abilities and need". If they want to read mail of person x, they will read mail of person x. The panoply of law governing access isn't meant to prevent government access, it's meant to prevent government access for trivial reasons.. If you have a valid reason, it will be allowed.
It occurs to me that you may think I am arguing a partisan point, but this will be true regardless of who's in government.
re. the whole iSam/Boba issue which is of course more important than the EU, Rotherham, Emilygate, Mellorgate II, and Lab's class envy.
I think Boba should stay. That said, as an observer of the exchanges I would say that he has, at times, conformed to the exact definition of a "troll" - not as in a troll who might, say, post something horrible on Jack Monroe's blog, but in the original sense of trying to wind everyone up and get them in a tizzy and so disrupt normal discourse.
More content would be welcome but my $0.02 would be to stay regardless.
But dear God we still need a leftist poster of substance.
As an economically dry as dust and socially come-all-ye Tory, not to say great proponent of personal freedom, but then again not a huge Church of God person, I am delighted that DC introduced this, which Lab, shame on them, had not done during their enlightened 13 years in govt.
As ever, it is the Cons who deliver while Lab has yet more pathetically ineffective strategies and initiatives.
Oh and the sight of privately-educated Tristram Hunt ranting on about how evil private education is had me reaching for the sick bucket.
@NickPalmer and you have the temerity to defend him despite, as has been pointed out, his father being a "do as I say not as I do" socialist also.
Also on the Rigby thing, the report is very cagey about which US service provider they're talking about, but it seems like this guy's previous accounts got deleted because of complaints, which suggests the content they're complaining they weren't notified about was publicly available and they could have just accessed it themselves, had this guy's file not been sat on somebody's desk for five months while they screened a million people for the Olympics.
But dear God we still need a leftist poster of substance.
Agreed, just wish they would stop going into full on troll mode. I can put up with them being wrong and misleading at times, but the out & out trolling gets so tiresome. If they can make a cohorent argument, why bother with the trolling?
Even tim came up with decent stuff enough of the time I could mostly put up with his darkside.
You're missing my point: I don't think he lost many votes *specifically* because of gay marriage. So looked at in isolation, it may be the right thing to do. (The analysis is complicated by the fact that many people who no longer support the Tories *also* oppose gay marriage, but I suspect that in most cases they would no longer support the Tories *regardless* of gay marriage).
To use an analogy - and don't read any labels across to any group: the GOP could reach out to Hispanics in an organised way, but in so doing lose the KKK vote. In my view - even if for 1 or 2 elections they don't have a net gain in votes - in the medium term the strategy will pay dividends
I see being harangued by a member of the ethnic minorities on Friday hasn't done much to change your rather privileged view of the world.
David Cameron fought the last election on the Big Society. A means of subcontracting the services of the State at a cheaper cost in these straitened times.
And what did the buffoon do? Attack those very organisations who are, will and have been providing those services for centuries.
So, in one fell swoop, he upset those demographically strong groups the religious, ethnic minorities and the poor.
As a long term strategy it was ridiculous. The only surprise is it has taken so little time for it all to implode.
My "rather privileged view of the world" is the British citizenship is an honour and a privilege, and that all people who have that status should have the same rights. However, with those rights come duties and obligations.
I am comfortable with the idea of people having a safe harbour so that they do not need to undertake positive actions which are against their belief system. But, fundamentally, if you want to be part of our society you need to acknowledge the supremacy of the secular law in the UK - and that it applies equally to all citizens. You can't have a situation whereby you say "I am a Catholic/Muslim/Pastafarian/whatever: this law does not apply to me" - if you want to take advantage of the safe harbour then you need to provide people with an alternative way to exercise their rights under the law.
* steps back and takes tissue from pocket, ready to wipe spittle from face*
You're missing my point: I don't think he lost many votes *specifically* because of gay marriage. So looked at in isolation, it may be the right thing to do. (The analysis is complicated by the fact that many people who no longer support the Tories *also* oppose gay marriage, but I suspect that in most cases they would no longer support the Tories *regardless* of gay marriage).
To use an analogy - and don't read any labels across to any group: the GOP could reach out to Hispanics in an organised way, but in so doing lose the KKK vote. In my view - even if for 1 or 2 elections they don't have a net gain in votes - in the medium term the strategy will pay dividends
Chales, I voted Cameron in 2010 but won't next time. Gay marriage has nothing to do with it, though I did watch somewhat bemused as he got himself entangled in a fight he didn't need to get in to. What the issue said however as David herdson has pointed out up thread was that Cameron managed to contrast the effort he would put in to policies for his favoured groups versus his total lack of effort for groups he didn't have time for. His job is to manage a broad church and he has shown her struggles to do this.
Now suddenly he realises he needs the votes of people he has switched off and will not get them back.
I for one am glad he went ahead with it, and it was a Tory PM that advocated the change. Saying that, I am quite tired of some of the PR disasters that have befallen this government, and of the jobs for the boys mentality he seems to have. He seems like a nice enough guy, but I can relate to people saying he is out of touch. Still, better blue than red!
Is he any more 'out of touch' than Thatcher of 'lets implement the poll tax in Scotland first' fame? Or Harold Macmillan? Churchill famously totally misunderstood what the daily ration was in WW2. But he survives as the greatest ever Briton. Probably rightly so too. This argument has to be the most facile one imaginable. Cameron is a regular mainstream typical Conservative leader. He is not a bad one, the decisions on the economy are right and the structural deficit is being cut and cameron has plainly said he does not support or want part of any EU ever closer union - good. Despite the protests its perfectly clear to me that the right wing opponents are just pandering to their prejudices. I have to say I find it creepy when the veneer is peeled away.
I didn't say "maximum of abilities", I said " maximum of abilities and need". If they want to read mail of person x, they will read mail of person x. The panoply of law governing access isn't meant to prevent government access, it's meant to prevent government access for trivial reasons.. If you have a valid reason, it will be allowed.
It occurs to me that you may think I am arguing a partisan point, but this will be true regardless of who's in government.
However the point being discussed was the TIA type of scenario where the government or its proxies effectively read everyone's mail on the off chance it might be useful, and then use it to go on fishing expeditions.
Thatcher's 'out of touchness' on the poll tax famously contributed to her downfall, as did the sense that MacMillan and his party were a bunch of out of touch toffs (not to his own, but in losing to Wilson). Churchill is a rather special case given that many who were glad to have him as war time PM due to his unique qualities, were less enamoured with him in peace time due to his faults - he did after all lose the 1945 election despite being quite rightly a national hero.
As for Cameron, when people call him 'out-of-touch' they tend to mean different things - most obviously there's his background and the closeness of the Tory party to the wealthy, something that unlike Thatcher (initially, before she started to sound like an Empress) he struggles to counteract. Just as Ed Miliband has struggled to step beyond his own left-wing academic wonkish persona, to many Cameron's totally implausible as a man of the people and protector of public services - some of whom are exactly the voters he needed to win in 2010 and still needs for a majority. Secondly there's the problem that all politicians have which is that people feel much more insecure and poorer now, even as the economy has recovered they don't feel that it has been 'for them' and so feel all politicians are out of touch, unless they're proposing the sort of radical populist solutions that promise huge change - hence the problems for both major parties with populist movements.
Lastly there's just a weariness with his type of politics. To use an American Football analogy he's using the Blair playbook at a time when the electorate (the defensive team) have seen it and worked it all out and so don't buy certain moves - witness the recent publicity drive around the Tories being for 'hardworking people' - actual people don't buy the rhetoric any more and so he's labelled 'out of touch' even if he says all the right things they think (probably rightly) that it's been focus grouped to death and is utterly inauthentic.
Comments
What on earth is the link between TLBS and Bobafett though ?
On the point about avoiding interception, yes you are right that it is easy (or seems easy, I don't know what capabilities the spooks have). That, though, isn't the point - it relates to those who have already got to the stage of plotting something unlawful, and assumes they don't make mistakes. Intelligence is about picking up the little signs which point you in the direction of where to look. Those little signs won't be so easily kept secure and encrypted.
BTW I love the way you're trying to wave away the fact that so much of current surveillance is done without warrants by suggesting the legal requirement for warrants has always been ignored in the past. While you still seem to think we can trust the same people not to run rings around democratic and judicial oversight the way they always have before.
Bobajobafettboyscout was hardly hidden from those who chose to look. Would have been more fun if he had - maybe if one had been a psychotic cyberNat....?
Otherwise I agree completely. If there is reason to suspect someone is up to no good, I am sure spooks can read anything they want given a little time, and rightly so. The key words there are "reason to suspect", not go on a fishing expedition through the emails of 50 million people, because it's neither proportionate nor realistic, and it's too easy to avoid if you are serious - mostly by not using email.
http://www.bobafettfanclub.com/boards/topic/1250/boy-scouts-girl-scouts
Yes Richard, only the "left" infringes liberties out of pure malice,.
The "right" does it out of a paternalistic care for the well being of the state.
Please stick around, Bob. The yobs must not win on one of the few internet comment sites that is genuinely worth reading.
Oh - and I did explicitly praise the last Labour government a week or two ago for the way they set up the regulatory oversight of the intelligence services. It's one thing they got right (and the oversight has been further strengthened by the coalition).
You have misunderstood. He is not talking about email. The clue is in this bit:
None of the major US companies we approached proactively monitor and review suspicious content on their systems, largely relying on users to notify them of offensive or suspicious content
(But, for the record, I'm not a fan of anyone being banned. Critical mass and different perspectives are what makes a site like this work)
Vangate may not have seeped into the national consciousness, but it does seem to have had an effect on some labour supporters.
You know the point, you would whine like a whipped cur if it was a Labour government doing this.
When this present government came to power, it repealed the "draconian" control orders, and is now ramping them back up again.
I don't hear many complaints about this from those who were so loud about it when the last government introduced them.
I was originally ChrisD when I first started posting here nearly a decade ago, but those that remember the site back then will also remember that there were numerous Chris's + initial posting on the site at the time. We were asked to make it less confusing as some posters kept mixing us all up, I therefore became ChristinaD which caused a bit of amusement at the time as some posters had just assumed that I was yet another male poster until that point!
As for my last name change, that came about when I was suddenly no longer able to post on the site one day. Mike Smithson and I could not understand why I was suddenly unable to post on the site, and IIRC, it was both Robert and fitaloon who worked out what the problem was. Ironically, it was because Mike Smithson had banned a certain term being used on the site, the last three letters of my screen name also contained part of that term. Hence my enforced name change to fitalass, which considering my hubby was posting as fitaloon on the site at the time was hardly hiding my identity!!
None of the major US companies we approached proactively monitor and review suspicious content on their systems, largely relying on users to notify them of offensive or suspicious content
If he is talking about social media then there is not the slightest chance the companies will get involved because the DMCA Safe Harbor considerations, in order not to be liable for a users content on their network they have to have no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, infringing activity on its network - once provided with knowledge, act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the complained-of material. As soon as they make themselves aware of what their users are doing, they become liable for it under American law.
http://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2014/10/13/the-horrible-implications-of-the-eu-vat-place-of-supply-change/
The other day Cameron was saying how micro-businesses and work-from-home should be supported. Now this EU legislation is about to hammer them.
If you are VAT registered it is a pain, but manageable.
If you are currently below the VAT threshold, and sell a few ebooks (etc) to supplement your income, it will be a nightmare.
EDIT: and you need to be ready by the end of 2014.
You are free to engage or not, it is after all a free country.
(for a given definition of free)
the statement so beloved of New Labour that you don't see the irony of using it Richard.
1) every British government (or its predecessors) have read personal correspondence to the maximumpof their abilities and need. It is by no means exceptional in this.
2) technology has now expanded so rapidly that intercepting every communication is now plausible. 100 billion text emails is easy: we can now do things like intercept every CCTV feed in real time, at least in theory.
3) the problem is not getting the data, it's interpreting it
It's an ideological shift from individual liberty, with intrusions being a necessary evil in a handful of cases, to an assumption in favour of power to the state.
Seriously, what sort of nasty personality must you have to do this? Life genuinely can't be a pleasant thing to go through to be so spiritually twisted. You deserve pity.
tom_watson@tom_watson·3 mins3 minutes ago
Hello @IvanLewis_MP. Is it ok if I express a view about income taxes in Scotland and England? Just checking in with you first.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30193527
Some of us called this five years ago. Nice to see the big economic organisations finally catching up.
Scrapheap.
David Cameron fought the last election on the Big Society. A means of subcontracting the services of the State at a cheaper cost in these straitened times.
And what did the buffoon do? Attack those very organisations who are, will and have been providing those services for centuries.
So, in one fell swoop, he upset those demographically strong groups the religious, ethnic minorities and the poor.
As a long term strategy it was ridiculous. The only surprise is it has taken so little time for it all to implode.
I didn't say "maximum of abilities", I said " maximum of abilities and need". If they want to read mail of person x, they will read mail of person x. The panoply of law governing access isn't meant to prevent government access, it's meant to prevent government access for trivial reasons.. If you have a valid reason, it will be allowed.
It occurs to me that you may think I am arguing a partisan point, but this will be true regardless of who's in government.
I think Boba should stay. That said, as an observer of the exchanges I would say that he has, at times, conformed to the exact definition of a "troll" - not as in a troll who might, say, post something horrible on Jack Monroe's blog, but in the original sense of trying to wind everyone up and get them in a tizzy and so disrupt normal discourse.
More content would be welcome but my $0.02 would be to stay regardless.
But dear God we still need a leftist poster of substance.
As an economically dry as dust and socially come-all-ye Tory, not to say great proponent of personal freedom, but then again not a huge Church of God person, I am delighted that DC introduced this, which Lab, shame on them, had not done during their enlightened 13 years in govt.
As ever, it is the Cons who deliver while Lab has yet more pathetically ineffective strategies and initiatives.
Oh and the sight of privately-educated Tristram Hunt ranting on about how evil private education is had me reaching for the sick bucket.
@NickPalmer and you have the temerity to defend him despite, as has been pointed out, his father being a "do as I say not as I do" socialist also.
Pah.
PS. I reckon it's YouTube.
https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/248153458?access_key=key-SVoEn08Kyh2p7PmK3NmY&allow_share=true&escape=false&view_mode=scroll
Even tim came up with decent stuff enough of the time I could mostly put up with his darkside.
new thread
Seconded. If you go John, then this place will be more right-wing than ConHome (it already probably is), so please stay...
I am comfortable with the idea of people having a safe harbour so that they do not need to undertake positive actions which are against their belief system. But, fundamentally, if you want to be part of our society you need to acknowledge the supremacy of the secular law in the UK - and that it applies equally to all citizens. You can't have a situation whereby you say "I am a Catholic/Muslim/Pastafarian/whatever: this law does not apply to me" - if you want to take advantage of the safe harbour then you need to provide people with an alternative way to exercise their rights under the law.
* steps back and takes tissue from pocket, ready to wipe spittle from face*
This argument has to be the most facile one imaginable.
Cameron is a regular mainstream typical Conservative leader. He is not a bad one, the decisions on the economy are right and the structural deficit is being cut and cameron has plainly said he does not support or want part of any EU ever closer union - good. Despite the protests its perfectly clear to me that the right wing opponents are just pandering to their prejudices. I have to say I find it creepy when the veneer is peeled away.
As for Cameron, when people call him 'out-of-touch' they tend to mean different things - most obviously there's his background and the closeness of the Tory party to the wealthy, something that unlike Thatcher (initially, before she started to sound like an Empress) he struggles to counteract. Just as Ed Miliband has struggled to step beyond his own left-wing academic wonkish persona, to many Cameron's totally implausible as a man of the people and protector of public services - some of whom are exactly the voters he needed to win in 2010 and still needs for a majority. Secondly there's the problem that all politicians have which is that people feel much more insecure and poorer now, even as the economy has recovered they don't feel that it has been 'for them' and so feel all politicians are out of touch, unless they're proposing the sort of radical populist solutions that promise huge change - hence the problems for both major parties with populist movements.
Lastly there's just a weariness with his type of politics. To use an American Football analogy he's using the Blair playbook at a time when the electorate (the defensive team) have seen it and worked it all out and so don't buy certain moves - witness the recent publicity drive around the Tories being for 'hardworking people' - actual people don't buy the rhetoric any more and so he's labelled 'out of touch' even if he says all the right things they think (probably rightly) that it's been focus grouped to death and is utterly inauthentic.