
UK emergency phone and internet data storage law to be brought in - timthorn
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28237108
======
noja
Oh for fuck's sake, really. And the LibDems agreed to this? Fuck them too.
WTF.

If anyone wants to fight this, please donate a few pounds a month to these
guys, they're brilliant:
[https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/)

~~~
insky
And there I was feeling a little sorry for the LibDems after their euro
defeat, hoping that they still had some sense of morality.

The main UK parties are siding this and fracking. The political landscape in
Britain is looking very bleak.

~~~
smackay
All the more reason to encourage a vote for an independent Scotland on Sept
18th. You'll be doing Scotland a favour and there will be a friendly place to
stay if things get too fucked up south of the border.

~~~
peteretep
Yes, this is definitely true. All of the issues that rich countries have with
their governments and privacy will certainly not apply to that mystical,
magical, tartan land, whose politicians shit rainbows.

~~~
smackay
It's simply a matter of scale. You can ignore the fantasy economics touted by
the politicians. For the most part, unless the country becomes a Banana
Republic there simply won't be the resources available (and hopefully the
will) to run a surveillance state. I also adhere to the, almost certainly
naive, view that smaller European countries (at least in the vicinity of our
close friends in Scandanavia) are generally better run with less likelihood of
vested interests running amok.

EDIT: It can't be any worse than the path we are already on.

~~~
vidarh
When it comes to surveillance, Scandinavia is not a beacon. Sweden has their
notorious law that allows any signal passing the borders to be intercepted by
military intelligence. Since most of Norways traffic out of the country goes
via Sweden, that's caused a few issues...

And Norwegian security services have decades worth of history of blatantly
illegal politically motivated surveillance (basically anyone to the left of
the Norwegian equivalent of Labour used to be under extensive surveillance -
some of it so blatant it was clearly intended to intimidate rather than
uncover anything; it was supposedly stopped in the mid 90's, but given that
the security services were illegally monitoring the head of the parliamentary
committee investigating them _while_ he was investigating them gives me zero
confidence anything has changed)

------
UVB-76
Disgraceful. All we have to do is mention "national security" and we can
enshrine whichever human rights violation we fancy into legislation?

~~~
Ntrails
Please don't assume that your view on what constitutes a human right
represents that of the majority of the population. Which, after all, is what
government represents.

~~~
higherpurpose
I don't think most "democratic" governments in their current form are a very
accurate representation of what people want. The way it works now is that
people get to vote _once every 4 years_ on some campaign _promises_ that
likely won't be implemented. And then the voted in government/parliament can
basically do whatever it wants.

Also, you're wrong. The human rights in Europe are not "up for debate". It's
the _law_ , and the highest Court in Europe has ruled that such data retention
is _illegal_. You don't get to say "yeah, but I don't think those are _really_
human rights".

~~~
Ntrails
If that were the case it wouldn't be possible for the government to create a
new law that over-ruled the highest court in Europe, surely...

------
makomk
For those who haven't been following UK politics, there used to be an EU-wide
law doing this. That law was created and pushed for by a previous UK
government, and the reason they did it as an EU law rather than a UK one was
to avoid all the pesky democratic accountability involved in passing UK laws.
The ECJ recently squashed the existing law, so they tried to sneak a UK one in
by not telling most MPs about the vote and got publicly rumbled by Tom Watson
MP last night.

~~~
pling
That's a perfectly good review of the situation.

You know when they try and sneak something in that the system is broken. The
question we have to ask:

Do these people really represent our best interests at this point in time?

If the answer is no, something needs to be done, but over 100 years of
population pacification (since the world wars) and the recent 30 years of
entertainment-driven culture has sucked the energy away from any dissidents.

It's all working nicely for everyone, until one day it doesn't.

~~~
insky
The energy is still there, it's just misdirected.

------
Create
We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question
whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with
the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States
government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

[http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html](http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html)

Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism
itself.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999](http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999)

------
greenyoda
I doubt that retaining this kind of information is going to make the UK any
safer. The truly dangerous people are going to know that their calls and texts
are being monitored, so they'll just start communicating in more secure ways:
using VPNs or Tor to get to web sites in other countries, having face to face
meetings, etc.

Just as in the U.S., the national surveillance apparatus is going to be used
to go after drug dealers rather than terrorists, but the justification is
always going to be "fighting terrorism", since that's what always seems to
convince people to give up their civil liberties.

------
beaker52
Any legislation they like is put through because the population are distracted
by shiny iPhones and are too busy hating each other to notice or find the
energy to take action in response. "Quick, let's get this through before the
pedo news really dies out" (Britain is being fed news of pedophile celebrities
and government ministers at the moment, causing 'outrage')

------
amirmc
> _" More controversially the new law will also produce what is being
> described as a "clearer legal framework" to allow access to the content of
> calls, texts and emails after a warrant is signed by a senior government
> minister."_

Government ministers can sign warrants? Is this new? It does _not_ sound like
a good idea.

~~~
pjc50
The Home Secretary has a wide range of powers to authorize all kinds of things
that aren't a good idea, like secret trials and "public interest immunity
certificates". I believe they can also direct the Director of Public
Prosecutions to prosecute (or not) crimes.

------
konradb
"The law will include a so-called sunset clause - ensuring that these powers
will die in 2016 - so there will be a longer and wider debate about what
replaces them."

Because something has to replace them, right? Can't just not do anything. Got
to keep the country safe... /s

~~~
pcrh
This smells like a rat. They appear to be introducing this law to protect
their _current_ activities, which were declared "invalid" by the European
Court of Justice.

The sunset clause is an attempt to prolong the debate to the point where the
public loses interest, at which point all that needs to be passed in 2016 is a
simple "confirmation of existing practice" for this to become permanent.

I wonder, though, how much the European Court's ruling is binding on the UK,
and if they would fall foul of it if this law is passed.

------
joosters
_"...all-party talks agreed that this law would enshrine existing rights and
not be used to extend them..."_

I am certain that they will sneak more powers into this bill than they had
before.

~~~
peteretep
Can you give more details on who "they" are, and any insight you have in to
the nefarious schemes they're hatching?

~~~
joosters
The government, police and security services.

I never mentioned any 'nefarious schemes' so you appear to have filled that in
yourself. My guess is that GCHQ and others have demanded more powers (some of
which to cover stuff that they already did but they knew was illegal all
along)

------
ig1
Write to your MP about this today - it has a much bigger impact than
complaining on HN:

[https://www.writetothem.com/](https://www.writetothem.com/)

~~~
coob
Sadly, the law will be passed before their researcher gets round to reading
your letter.

~~~
hackerboos
>their researcher

Read unpaid intern.

------
tomp
This is how "democracy" works. Courts declare something illegal. Government
changes the laws. All without the consent of the ruled.

------
knotty66
Don't the security services have this data already? Through Tempora/XKeyscore
etc. So national security should already be covered.

~~~
noja
"The government is tacitly admitting that our current data retention laws are
illegal and that they are required to re-legislate..." \-
[https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press/releases/threat-of-
leg...](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press/releases/threat-of-legal-action-
not-terrorism-behind-calls-for-emergency-data-retention-legislation)

------
pling
Fuck them all to hell.

I have nothing more to say.

------
Guejcjdsjrhdb
Time to acquire a taste for victory gin...

