

Britain's top prosecutor warns that surveillance technology is creating a police state - theoneill
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3230452/Centuries-of-British-freedoms-being-broken-by-security-state-says-Sir-Ken-Macdonald.html

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ojbyrne
Ok, I hate to sum up the UK in one word. But... duh.

The UK really needs another leader like Thatcher, this time not attacking
socialism but the whole "using crime to sell surveillance" culture. Go Sir Ken
Macdonald!

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cabalamat
You're right that the UK does need to end the surveillance culture. But to say
we need another leader "like Thatcher" is way off the mark, given that the
surveillance culture and erosion of civil liberties started under her (and
accelerated under Major, Blair, and Brown).

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jdavid
sometimes the only way to change something, requires that it first gets out of
control. its hard to create a revolution against nothing.

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gills
The editorialized headline made me want to write a comment to the effect of
"it's never the technologies we need to fear, but the abuses of the hands they
are in"...good thing I read the article and found that was the gist of it.

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cabalamat
Unfortunately it's the combination of new technologies and existing attitudes
that are the problem. For example, if you ask the average politician what's an
acceptable level of crime, he'll say "none". The average member of the public
will say the same. But the only way to achieve this is with omnipresent
surveillance. Every electronic conversation will be monitored, there'll be a
surveillance camera on every street corner (there's already 1 for every 15
people), people's movements will be tracked using their mobile phone. All cars
will have tracker devices, ostensibly for road pricing, but all movements will
be logged. Everyone will be forced to carry an RFID-enabled ID card.

All this technology will be sold to the public as protection against
terrorists and pedophiles, but will eventually be used against everyone. (For
example, local councils have used terrorist legislation to snoop on
householders who have allegedly not been putting their rubbish out correctly.)

If it becomes possible to use brain scanners to read people's minds, this will
be done too. To start with, to check for terrorists, but later to enforce
conformity of thought on the entire population -- for their own good of
course. For example, it's illegal not to employ someonre because of their
race. Fair enough, you might say. But if a small business owner is a racist
they can easily get around this by not employing people they don't want to
(they have to be careful not to tell them it's for racial reasons, of course).
Now a well-meaning but dim person could suggest that we check that someone
wasn't refused employment for racial reasons, by scanning the brain of the
employer. So eventually, anyone who thinks for themselves and doesn't just get
into the habit of unthinkingly going along with the prevailing intellectual
fashions of the day will find themselves in trouble.

All this will happen unless the political climate changes and people accept
that tolerating a certain level of crime is better than an omnipresent
totalitarian state breathing down their neck all the time.

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gills
It may be my sociological opiate, but I have more faith in our species to
tolerate less tyranny than your post implies. I also think we will see a
marked decrease in tolerance in the next few years as more people have
'nothing to lose' and choose freedom over bread.

