
UK’s secret, ongoing mass surveillance rigorously frisked by watchdog - daenney
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/07/uk-secret-ongoing-mass-surveillance-iocco-report-section-94-telecommunications-act/
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noir_lord
Carte Blanche collection of data with no oversight, no ability to appeal, no
ability to even discuss that they've been forced to comply at the direction of
a political appointee.

Remind me how we are a free country again /s.

~~~
mtgx
And now UK is not even under EU's Fundamental Charter of Rights anymore, which
declares privacy a human right. This is one of the reasons why Cameron
secretly wanted UK out of the EU, or at least wanted to blackmail the EU into
allowing UK to "opt-out" of the Fundamental Charter.

UK is so screwed now, in more ways than one.

~~~
daenney
The human right to privacy enshrined in the Freedoms act of the "Charter of
Fundamental Rights of the European Union" is not a blanket protection against
any form of spying on you but it limits the intrusion you can be subjected to
(amongst other things). There are many things that we could consider in breach
of our privacy that are still allowed within the law. With all the gag
ordering going around it's becoming increasingly hard to even know if you're a
target.

As also pointed out, just because the UK has had a referendum on leaving the
EU and they voted in favour of leaving doesn't mean they've left the EU. In
order to do so they need to trigger Article 50. So far none of the UK
politicians have done so as they're too busy quitting, backstabbing and
running around with their tails between their legs. No one wants to go down in
history for this. Even if they had triggered article 50 it is estimated to
take anywhere between a year and two for a nation to actually leave the EU
(this has never been done before so no one really knows). During that time
they are a "silent" member of the EU, bound by all its rules and legislation
but with no vote or voice in the decision making progress.

It should also be noted that Cameron did not campaign to leave. He promised
the referendum as a way to avoid his party splitting in two and in order to
get (re)elected as PM. As a consequence he's now split his country in more
than two. One could argue that this is worse.

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nxzero
Found the comments on Theresa May's efforts to revoke free speech more
interesting than the data in the article.

Imagining a world where governments are able to tell people not to speak
publicly, or worse, secretly told not to do so, sounds like a horrible idea.

~~~
ominous
Like an FBI gag order?

~~~
nxzero
Right, though there are other examples of secrecy orders too, for example:
[https://www.wired.com/2013/04/gov-secrecy-orders-on-
patents/](https://www.wired.com/2013/04/gov-secrecy-orders-on-patents/)

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sandworm101
Does anyone here believe that online activity isn't being collected? Imho the
only sane thing to do is assume that anything that can physically be captured
is being captured, regardless of laws. Therefore, the discussion should
instead focus on defeating the physical technological limitations, rather than
seeking to apply legal controls.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Can the technology be defeated? Short of a Butlerian Jihad[1]? (hints of our
usernames). Can we unlearn how to make The Bomb?

Perhaps we can defeat, or at least limit the impact of, the technology as
individuals Stallman-style.

Of course, laws are a very high latency side-channel of authority and power,
so they don't really fix anything either. You can't be un-surveilled by a
court order, well maybe to a limited extent, if we trust the courts and law
enforcement, which we probably shouldn't when it comes to surveillance. My
point being, laws can't undo past actions or relieve a person of the memory of
the experiences.

So what should we do? I'm going to posit that we, society collectively, won't
do anything, not for a good while longer anyway if at all. Sure, we can use
end-to-end encryption, but that does nothing to prevent meta-data being
slurped up.

1\.
[http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad](http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad)

~~~
sandworm101
> Can the technology be defeated?

Yes. Tor, and like technologies. There are some mathematical limitations on
total surveillance, there is a point at which the technological costs of
tracking everyone 24/7 are beyond budgets or even physical possibilities.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Can anyone tell me, is there actually a reason why both The Pentagon and GCHQ
have gardens in the centre of the buildings?

Does this design confer some advantage in the event of a weapons strike, or is
it purely architectural?

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Mostly architectural. The only pragmatic benefit is it allows powerful people
to go "outside" without going out in public. Take a break, walk in the semi-
private garden.

During the cold war, we used to joke that the flagpole in the center at the
Pentagon was the most precisely surveyed pole in the World (by the Soviets).

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xiaoma
Bonus points for the relevant law responsible having 1984 in its name.

~~~
type0
Maybe they're also using 1984 as a manual on how it should be done.

