
“Snoopers' charter” petition hits signatures target - tooba
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38130344
======
Udo
Is it just me or does 118k signatures seem absolutely pitiful? I heard it
mentioned over and over that the _vast_ majority of citizens is in support of
this (and any other) Orwellian law, and judged from a distance this seems like
a correct assessment. If there was any public resistance worth mentioning,
shouldn't there be millions of people not only giving signatures but
protesting in the streets?

~~~
OJFord
Not as compared to others; I think there's a certain sense of 'why bother'
once a petition hits 100k (the requirement to be considered for debate).

~~~
djmobley
Even so, with a concerted effort, you could probably get 118k people to sign
just about any petition.

------
iamben
I doubt they'll even debate it. And on the off chance they do, it'll be a "we
understand the concern, but it's needed and your data will be safe".

Frightening, really.

~~~
rlpb
> "...your data will be safe"

I'd ask for statutory and automatic (no demonstration of harm required)
[minimum] damages of (say) £1000 to every citizen for every breach together
with the immediate dismissal of the head of the department responsible if the
breach came from a government agency. The government should also pay for the
insurance premiums of private companies coerced to implement this scheme
against their potential payouts.

If my "data will be safe", this shouldn't be a problem to implement as it will
have zero cost.

~~~
derrickdirge
"Oh, did we say 'your data'? Because we meant 'our asses.'"

------
deutronium
[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/investigatory-powers-bill-act-snoopers-charter-browsing-history-
what-does-it-mean-a7436251.html) \- I'm very curious why the NHS need access
to your browsing history, along with everyone else.

~~~
eth0up
The NHS _and_ at least 47 other organizations according to that list.

------
redwards510
Can someone from the UK please explain what is up with your government
officials? How do they get away with passing such unpopular, draconian bills?
It just seems bizarre that they could go against the will of the average
person so blatantly. Are there "people on the street" who support this
charter? Why does England pass such harsh, invasive surveillance laws aimed
squarely at their own people? And why does it seem like the Lords (or whoever
it is that is passing them) just ignore the cries from their own constituents?

I'm sure that I see things tainted through American-goggles but it sure seems
sometimes like it's not really a representative-style government.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Can someone from the US please explain what's up with _your_ government.

------
peeters
> The required data covers only the domain name of each site visited -
> www.facebook.com or www.bbc.com, for example - not the individual pages
> within them.

So this article was the first time I learned the law only requires host
logging. But now I'm even more confused...how does the UK Gov argue that
logging your access of facebook.com, but not what you do _in_ facebook.com,
will help fight terrorism? Like, are terrorists going to isisrecruiting.com? I
would've thought they would just use subportions of more popular and general
hosts.

~~~
MarcScott
For the first year...

Then there'll be amendments that force ISPs to log the pages viewed, time
spent on each page, downloads, etc.

~~~
NTripleOne
>time spent on each page

Is that even universally loggable? Once a page has finished downloading,
that's it, your connection is closed and you were technically only 'on' the
site for as long as the total transfer took. Of course you could track it via
some other (semi)persistant means - but that's more of a site thing than an
ISP thing.

------
djoldman
Set a script to visit every website daily? Defeats the intent of the law if
the isp doesn't record more info than domains visited..

~~~
roryisok
Set a script to visit EVERY website? There must be hundreds of them by now.

------
Hondor
A positive thing is that with so much centralized internet (facebook, twitter,
etc), rather than isolated websites, there's not much they'll be able to read
from it just by the domain. Are you on the facebook terrorist group or the
nanna's group? Everyone will look the same to them.

~~~
amouat
Everybody visits a wide variety of websites. This data is likely to reveal:

    
    
      - if you are suffering from any illnesses (HIV, cancer)
      - your sexual orientation
      - your religion
    

Within months, ISPs or govt agencies will be hacked and 3rd parties will have
access to this information. The implications are horrifying.

EDIT: Also, I suspect the data will be URLs, rather than just domain names, so
they will be able to tell a lot from facebook etc.

EDIT2: Actually, apparently it will be just IP addresses and domain names (not
full URLs):
[https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/504192/Operational_Case_for_the_Retention_of_Internet_Connection_Records_-
_IP_Bill_introduction.pdf)

------
Thisisrandom8
Snowden was right. It's turn key tyranny!

------
westmeal
Sic semper tyrannus

~~~
schoen
I think you want the dative "tyrannis" rather than nominative "tyrannus".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#Second_declen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#Second_declension_.28o_stems.29)

~~~
Tomte
I obviously cannot tell what he meant, but in context I think that "tyrannus"
makes more sense.

~~~
grzm
As opposed to the Latin expression?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_semper_tyrannis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_semper_tyrannis)

Legitimately asking. I'm not sure why it would be anything other than "Thus
always to tyrants".

~~~
Tomte
Latin isn't a set of cast-in-stone strings of words. While sic semper tyrannis
is very well known, sic semper tyrannus is also grammatical.

"Rest in peace" is well known, but "Rest in pieces" is neither unhead of, nor
wrong. It's a riff on a well known phrase.

Same here: "Thus always (do) tyrants"

As I said, I think it makes more sense here. I think he wanted to call the UK
government tyrants, not the spied-upon people.

~~~
grzm
Gotcha. Thanks for the explanation. I interpreted it more along the lines of
the petition as a form of rebellion against the government, which I think
would warrant _sic temper tyrannis_ , correct?

(Maybe the poster will weigh in and save us the trouble of deciphering his
intent :)

