

Politicians call for UK security services to be given greater monitoring powers - RobAley
http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22891845

======
anon1385
This piece is by Allegra Stratton, somebody with well known ties to the
Conservative party. She is giving this letter more weight than it is worth
(none of those opposition MPs are part of the shadow cabinet, and their
positions on this were already known as far as I remember) to try and put
pressure on the Lib Dems to cave on this issue. Not that I believe Labour is
going to fight this, just that this letter doesn't represent any change or
"renewed pressure". John Reid, another Labour former Home Secretary, was
already making a disgusting spectacle of himself all over the news in the days
after Lee Rigby was murdered saying it showed the need for more government
surveillance.

Additionally, when Jack Straw comes out in support of some new Home Office
policy, you have to put that into context. He should be facing public trial
over deporting people to be tortured and lying about it[1][2], and the current
government aimed to prevent that with their expansion of secret courts (part
of the Justice and Security Act)[3], so he owes them big time.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Straw#Rendition_and_tortu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Straw#Rendition_and_torture_allegations)
[2] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/02/abdel-
hakim-b...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/02/abdel-hakim-belhaj-
jack-straw) [3] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/sep/25/secret-courts-
the-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/sep/25/secret-courts-the-
essential-guide)

~~~
einhverfr
I also suspect that the timing works against this bill. It takes brashness
(and not much sense) to propose this bill at this time.

Yes, in the middle of a major international scandal, let's imitate the bad
guys. That's a great idea....

~~~
anon1385
It's hard to say what will happen. Milliband will whip his MPs to vote in
favour of it, so it can pass without Lib Dem support. That would risk
collapsing the coalition though. Fixed terms mean that the Tories would
probably limp on as a minority government till 2015, but without much ability
to get anything through (and they have little chance of getting reelected in
2015) so they would have to be really committed to this issue to do that.

Lib Dems know they are going to get a hammering in 2015 and they need to start
differentiating themselves from the Tories to have any hope at all, but it
seems too soon for that at the moment. Thus-far they have proven incapable of
taking a stand on anything of significance. Sadly polling probably indicates
that this isn't something the public care enough about to make it worth them
bringing down the government over, so I can easily see them rolling over in
exchange for a few more years sucking on the teat of power. Or perhaps the
most cowardly thing of all: making it a free-vote so that enough Lib Dem MPs
will vote for it while Lib Dem HQ can claim to oppose it without any risk to
the coalition.

It may be decided by UKIP and backbench Tories. If they are against it I can't
see Cameron pushing it. Unfortunately a lot of the Tory backbench rebels are
also staunch Atlanticists and heavily involved in the defence/security
industry (think Liam Fox).

Whatever happens this will be on the books by ~2016 unless there is a
significant public backlash.

~~~
nly
You seem to know your shit. What resources do you follow to stay current with
UK politics?

~~~
corin_
Without wanting to be rude about anon1385 (who I'm sure does know his shit),
I'm not sure he said anything particularly insightful. I'd have had pretty
much the same ideas that he had (though wouldn't have articulated them so
well), and while I do have a general interest in politics, I really don't do a
good job staying up-to-date on current affairs, so for the most part my
knowledge is reasonable but not at all detailed.

Perhaps if you yourself are not in the UK then that's why you ask, as I guess
foreigners would need to more specifically try harder to keep up to date with
our politics than we do here (even with my loose following of current afairs,
the papers I read are written with a UK focus, the topical news quizzes I
watch on TV are UK focused, etc.)

~~~
anon1385
Yeah, I've nothing particularly insightful to say here beyond things that
become apparent if you follow UK politics. To those who don't I'm sure it gets
fairly confusing; there are a lot of byzantine things about the process of UK
politics. I was mostly trying to provide a bit of context for the non-uk
readers.

Having said that, if people are interested in the day to day then the Guardian
do a live politics blog most days which will have coverage of speeches,
important votes and links to articles and comment pieces in the other papers.

Also if you are a UK citizen and care about politics I think it really is
worth your time to actually sit and watch parliament at some point. Preferably
try and work out when they will be talking about an issue you care about or
have an interest in (I'd advise against Prime Ministers Questions, it's mostly
a lot of pre-prepared soundbites and weak jokes with very little answering of
questions). It will probably reveal quite a bit about the real positions of
backbenchers, the main parties etc beyond what you see in the papers or the
soundbites on the TV news. You may find it surprising who you are agreeing
with or not. Also there is a lot of theatre and protocol to it which is kind
of entertaining at times.

~~~
corin_
I'm a big fan of the Guardian, but I'd also suggest that for anyone who has
trouble keeping up-to-date, you're probably best off trying out difference
sources and finding the one that suits you. Whether that's a source that's
extremely left- or right-wing, or somewhere in the middle, if it works for
you, chances are you'll read it more. Of course, the next improvement up from
this is to read multiple sources to get the fuller, more objective picture.

Also, I've found comedic sources can be great. My two are Have I Got News For
You (Friday night comedy panel show based around current afairs - doesn't run
all year round though) and Private Eye (satirical current afairs weekly
magazine - coincidentally edited by one of the permanent team captains on
HIGNFY, Ian Hislop). They can be great fun if you know what they are going to
cover already, and they can be a great way for people who are less interested,
or just less up-to-date, to get a snapshot of news without having to try too
hard to get into it.

~~~
Silhouette
There are also multiple satirical current affairs shows that alternate on BBC
Radio 4, again broadcast on Friday evenings among other times. If you enjoy
_Have I Got News For You_ then _The Now Show_ or _The News Quiz_ are probably
worth your time as well.

------
tehwalrus
Typical stuff from the Labour authoritarian-brigade (Straw, Johnson), joined
as usual by their Tory clones. I'm surprised to see a Lib Dem signatory, but
then you can find _a_ LD somewhere who'll sign up to anything (much like
academics).

The more disturbing thing is the political language in the letters, first
accusing the Lib Dems of exploiting "coalition niceties," rather than standing
up for person liberty and privacy, and secondly by trying to make it look like
corporate interests:

 _" We find it odd that many critics of the Bill prefer to champion the rights
of corporations over democratically accountable law enforcement agencies."_

when in fact it's about individuals' privacy from state spying! Yes broadband
companies said they didn't want to be responsible for logging all this data,
but that's beside the point, really.

This sort of rhetoric will chime dangerously well with the tabloid-reading
public, on top of the arms race against criminals/terrorists/drug
addicts/whoever the "bad guys" are today -- I'm worried it will be a
politically effective tactic.

~~~
alan_cx
Just to point out, you missed out "Paedophiles".

~~~
Torn
As usual, thinking of the children.

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UVB-76
There's something particularly vile about the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby
being exploited to advance this legislation.

~~~
andyhmltn
Sadly this seems to happen a lot. Playing on the emotions of the voters is the
quick and dirty way to pass something.

~~~
stfu
There is something about the political opportune moment. These are to a
certain degree even predictable. For example currently it looks like we are
building up the infrastructure for pushing through gun legislation. All we are
waiting for is another Caucasian kid to nuts with a gun.

------
rwmj
As one of the commenters on the BBC website points out, it's more likely this
is about retrospectively legalizing what's already being done rather than
anything new. After it was exposed that GCHQ "may" have been using Prism data
(ie. of course they were) GCHQ employees are now open to being sued for
contravening RIPA _unless_ they can get something on the statute books pronto.

------
muyuu
Nick Clegg just said "it's not going to happen with me in the government" \-
I'm dead worried now. They are going to push this very soon.

~~~
Silhouette
It will be nothing but good for Nick Clegg if they do. He could threaten to
break the coalition over it on a point of principle, and in doing so make
amends for the tuition fees betrayal. He could put the Lib Dems back on the
political map and reassert their authority for the next two years in
government _in a single sound-bite_.

------
Fuxy
Lol they see the outrage of the American population over the snooping programs
and they think... "I want a program like that too". Talk about selfish and not
working in the peoples interest.

~~~
rahoulb
It was originally proposed a couple of years back and dropped. Then following
the murder of a soldier on the streets of London it's back on the agenda. They
are probably cursing the timing of the NSA revelations.

------
cjrp
"The proposed Communications Data Bill does not want access to the content of
our communications but does want to ensure that enough data is available in
the aftermath of an attack to help investigators establish 'who, where and
when' were involved in planning or supporting it."

So there's a limitation in the bill which says that the proposed data can only
be collected following an attack? Not that I've seen.

~~~
Silhouette
It's also surprising that they claim to need all these powers _without a
warrant_ if they're only going to be used after an event to try and figure out
what happened.

I do think it's important not to over-react to things like this and neuter the
security services when they really do have legitimate grounds to investigate
someone and they really are doing their jobs under a reasonable level of
scrutiny and oversight.

However, how often would security services really need to act so fast that
they had to circumvent getting a named minister to personally sign off on
their actions (and accept responsibility for them, presumably) or getting a
court order for surveillance based on making a case that it was a reasonable
to invade someone's privacy under the circumstances?

William Hague keeps talking about how all of this spying is done under a legal
framework, but I think he loses a lot of credibility making that argument as
part of an administration that argues for secret courts and the like, standing
next to the senior foreign representative of a nation that uses blatant legal
trickery so it can detain people indefinitely without trial contrary to even
its own normal legal rules. What's the point of having a legal framework if
most people can't see that law in action or if you can just circumvent the
framework when it's inconvenient?

------
GotAnyMegadeth
What can I do, as a UK citizen, to stop this from happening?

~~~
shawabawa3
[http://www.writetothem.com/](http://www.writetothem.com/) I guess, for all
the good it will do

~~~
summerdown2
Certainly voting doesn’t seem to change anything, given the present lot want
general surveillance and the last lot wanted ID cards.

I’ve just written to Andy Burnham about it. I can only hope he’s receptive,
though from his voting record it doesn’t seem likely.

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mikeratcliffe
I find that peoples understanding of this issue is way too simplistic.

It won't help to stop terrorists because they will always use the internet in
ways that cannot be monitored (https, VPN, etc.).

It will allow the gathering of everybodies data in one place, which is
dangerous as hackers are regularly gaining access to this kind of information.

Another problem is that innocent people are sure to be branded as possible
terrorists and refused entry on flights etc.

~~~
gaius
Worth reading:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002)

In an exercise, an enemy using a method not easy to intercept sunk the US
Navy. Oops.

------
mindcrime
Great, more government surveillance, that's exactly what we need. Maybe the
Brits could just copy the language of the "Patriot Act" outright and implement
that.

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Yaa101
They will just use it to fine more people for misplacing their trashcans, like
they did with all their security programs.

