

Snowden banned from flying to UK - yenoham
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22902098

======
DanBC
Why on earth would he want to come to the UK?

It's [edit] certainly not the place to be if you want privacy.

RIPA (regulation of investigatory powers act) has been abused by local council
staff spying on public to see if they live within a school catchment area or
within an area qualifying for cheap parking. There are other abuses too.

We're bringing in a "snooper's charter" \- this is just traffic data and not
content of calls, but still, it's pretty unpleasant.

We had / have "Phorm" \- deep packet inspection of customer internet traffic
in order to serve ads.

The idea of national ID cards had a small number of opponents, but was mostly
met with "meh". The thing that actually killed it was the cost to the
individual. I'm sure that if they had kept the cost to £30 per person we'd all
have ID cards today.

In theory GCHQ have strict regulatory oversight. I do know people who work for
GCHQ. I never talk to them about work, and they never talk to me about work,
but they do say that regulatory oversight is real and true.

But we don't have the US concept of "fruit of the poisoned tree" \- in the US
a wiretap needs a court order, and without that any evidence gained cannot be
used in court. That forces cops to actually get the court order, or risk
losing cases. In the UK we allow spies to gather this stuff, and police to
take action on it, but we don't want it used in court because then it's a
matter of public record and thus subject to scrutiny and we leak information
about capabilities. I see the benefit in both approaches, but I can appreciate
that some people would be horrified with the English approach.

We were complicit in torture of innocent, untried, uncharged, soldiers /
terrorists / combatants.

We have detention without charge ([http://www.liberty-human-
rights.org.uk/human-rights/terroris...](http://www.liberty-human-
rights.org.uk/human-rights/terrorism/detention-without-charge/index.php)).

The UK has about 1% of the world population, but about 20% of the installed
CCTV base.

Cheshire has a population of 700,000 people
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire))
but has over 12,000 CCTV cameras, of which about 500 - 600 are run by public
authorities.

([http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-
watchi...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-watching-
surveillance))

We happily ship people to the US under our unbalanced extradition treaty.

tl;dr: He'd be nuts to want to come here.

{EDIT: _Strikethrough_ [a horrible place to live, and] _in response to people
below_ }

~~~
kryten
To be fair, all the 14 CCTV cameras on my street (!) have been sprayed, burned
or shot.

That's the only crime going on around where I live.

People aren't putting up with this shit any more.

~~~
DanBC
I think this graffiti project is quite funny.
([http://www.irational.org/heath/cctv_sabotage/](http://www.irational.org/heath/cctv_sabotage/))

~~~
kryten
That is pretty cool.

The only problem being that you're probably going to get caught doing it.

------
kryten
He'll be fine if he can get to the Ecuadorian Embassy quick enough :)

I live in the UK and am utterly disgusted at the pieces of shit that act in
our name.

You can't vote them out as it's a bipartisan system with two sets of the same
ideals.

You can't revolt because everyone is too busy staring at Simon Cowel's
nefarious trash pumped through our telescreens.

You can't speak up because it's illegal.

Sit, obey, conform.

~~~
theklub
I came up with a crazy idea this morning for an internet based political party
that allows its members to vote on all ideas and actions the party will take.
I think now is the time for something like this. We need to make it happen.

~~~
Jenk
Be careful on what you wish for.

"The strongest argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with
the average voter." Winston Churchill.

~~~
kryten
Perhaps we should give people a proportional vote weighted by their
intelligence?

~~~
alexjeffrey
that sounds like a formula for a true intellectually elitist society. The
people's opinions should be heard equally if at all.

~~~
kryten
My point entirely. There was a degree of sarcasm in it.

------
ck2
_the notice was not supposed to be seen by the public_

I am starting to think the people on the other side of "the public doesn't
need to know" enjoy their little fantasy world a little too much.

~~~
mtgx
What do they have to hide, if they've done nothing wrong? I think we should
ask them this question everytime they try to keep something secret from the
public.

I don't remember who said it recently, but it's the people who need to know
everything their government is doing at all times, not the other way around,
with the government knowing everything their citizens do, but keeping
everything they do secret. We need to turn this around.

------
buro9
He'd be foolish to come to the UK anyway, we'd extradite him before he'd left
the airport.

~~~
gutnor
"liable to costs relating to the individual's detention and removal'' should
they allow him to travel. According to the Home Office's website that charge
would be £2,000"

Being a little bit cynical, but 2000 GBP seems closer to the cost of shipping
him to the US than the cost of detaining him.

~~~
smelendez
Even if they just denied him entry and/or deported him, it would probably
would be back to either where he flew from or where his passport's from. And
Hong Kong might not want him back once he's been denied entry to the UK, so to
the US he would most likely go.

------
josscrowcroft
_" There is no suggestion that he has any intention to try to travel to the
UK."_

Says it all really. Don't waste your time reading this hypey article.

------
hackerboos
Surely Snowden knows that there isn't safe harbour in the UK after what
happened to Assange?

~~~
mpyne
Though I do agree with your main point, nothing happened to Assange until
Sweden asked to have him extradited to complete the charging process.

~~~
jetti
Which is what the US is already doing with Snowden. It shows what the UK would
already do with Snowden if he did go to the UK.

~~~
mpyne
I'm a bit confused here, even Schneier said that Snowden undoubtedly broke the
law, what did you think the U.S. was going to do, especially now that he is
talking about leaking details of NSA hacking activities over to China? It's
comparatively easy to grant a pardon after extradition for PRISM alone, he's
making the rest more difficult.

------
junto
I imagine that Snowden is well aware of the UK's 'poodle' relationship.

------
xutopia
This is known as the highest honour you can get just above knighthood.

------
jimmithy
Could this not be them acting in his best interests? Giving a warning that
they will be unable to help him while still looking strong to the Americans?

------
thehme
I hope Edward Snowden is well wherever he goes, even if the UK, but according
to "news" reports, he was making a lot of money, so he is probably in a beach
somewhere. In any case, hopefully bring the NSA problem to the public eye will
encourage the world to be more private and to demand privacy from their govs.

~~~
gaius
Being on the run is _incredibly_ expensive. You will burn money at 10x the
rate of normal life. And he's not getting a salary any more (and even so, that
salary wasn't too dissimilar from what a sysadmin in SF would get).

------
alxbrun
As always, the UK merely acts as a vassal to the US.

------
MRSallee
Remember when radio host Michael Savage was banned from the UK? I get the
feeling it's not hard to get banned from the country.

~~~
daywalker
Michael Savage is still banned apparently. He was raging about it the other
day.

~~~
biff
I remember when that decision first came down, and his show was playing The
Kinks "Living on a Thin Line" into and out of break (the first part: "All the
stories have been told / Of kings and days of old, / But there's no England
now.")

Within a few days, if I recall correctly, he was asking the audience to buy
copies of his new book and mail them to whoever it was in England that set the
rules in this regard, to send her a message.

I'm on the left edge of the political spectrum, assuming that's 2D, but every
time Michael Savage was on and I was doing something where I could listen to
talk radio I'd tune in. Guy knows how to put on an entertaining show.

------
eliasmacpherson
At one time America was England's colony, fancy that.

------
wilfra
I'm not sure if this is a clever or pathetic attempt to try and manipulate the
courts in HK, but that's pretty clearly what it is. They are a former English
colony, whose courts are based on English law and who presumably hold the
opinions of England in very high regard.

