
David Cameron: Twitter and Facebook privacy is unsustainable - tjr
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2015/06/30/david-cameron-twitter-and-facebook-privacy-is-unsustainable
======
sctb
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9811288](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9811288)

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crystalmeph
"The question we must ask ourselves is whether, as technology develops, we are
content to leave a safe space—a new means of communication—for terrorists to
communicate..."

This kind of argument is only a few steps removed from physically placing
microphones in private residences. Only to be turned on with a proper warrant,
of course.

~~~
ewzimm
But in that case, you could leave your private residence and whisper to your
friend in a microphone-free park. If our goal is to ensure that terrorists
have absolutely no means of private communication and we don't know who might
be a terrorist, the only viable solution is to ensure that everyone carries
their surveillance equipment with them wherever they go. Back-dooring Facebook
and Twitter will only drive the terrorists to use services which don't log
everything they write and give American corporations unlimited access to their
secret plans, so it's either snoop on everyone's body or accept that people
are going to find ways to communicate in secret if they really want to.

~~~
noir_lord
This makes the big assumption that they actually give a shit about catching
terroist's rather than using it as a massive powers land grab.

We already have RIPA which allowed local councils to use anti-terror
legislation to investigate parents for school catchment zones (oh and iirc
investigations into bins).

~~~
DanBC
RIPA regulated those councils, and stopped that abuse of law from happening.

~~~
noir_lord
> Public bodies have sought to use the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
> (Ripa) on nearly three million occasions in the past decade to snoop on
> people.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8868757/Council...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8868757/Councils-
have-mounted-millions-of-snooping-operations-in-past-decade-finds-report.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Po...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000#Accusations_of_oppressive_use)

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batou
Two words and I'm not making an intelligent argument here but: Get fucked.

~~~
mariusz79
You forgot to add - "With all due respect...."

:)

~~~
venomsnake
I don't think there is much respect due for him.

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snowy
"Britain is not a state that is trying to search through everybody’s emails
and invade their privacy," he insisted.

That made me laugh...

~~~
knodi123
He followed up "I mean, don't get me wrong- we do that. All the time.
Constantly. But we aren't _trying_ to. And in the end, I think it's the
thought that counts."

~~~
mikeash
Some consider the entire British Empire to have come about essentially by
accident. Compared to that, accidentally reading everyone's e-mail is minor.

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oaktowner
He says "We have always been able, on the authority of the home secretary, to
sign a warrant and intercept a phone call, a mobile phone call or other media
communications," but is clearly not content with same constraint with
electronic communication. He can already get a warrant and gain access to
private emails; what he _wants_ is the ability to collect all emails
_regardless_ of the existence of a warrant.

It's an _amazingly_ huge power grab and degradation of privacy.

------
jsprogrammer
Let us not forget that this is the leader that takes policy direction from
what happens in the television dramas he watches. [0]

>"I love watching, as I should probably stop telling people, crime dramas on
the television. There is hardly crime drama where a crime is solved without
using the data of a mobile communications device.

>"As you move from a world of people having fixed telephones and mobile phones
to Skype and phones on the internet, if we don't modernise the practise and
modernise the law over time we will have the communications data to solve
these horrible crimes on a shrinking proportion of devices. That is a real
problem for keeping people safe."

[0]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10608439/David-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10608439/David-
Cameron-TV-crime-dramas-show-need-for-snoopers-charter.html)

~~~
grkvlt
It's a bit of a leap from those statements to "takes policy direction from
[...] television dramas he watches" though.

I think the Telegraph is being intellectually dishonest. Cameron was using the
TV shows as an easily understandable and relatable-to example of what the
policies he is promoting involve, not the other way around.

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mmanfrin
Can someone to me explain why it seems that all major British politicians from
both parties seem so unbelievably stupid when it comes to the internet?
Cameron wants an end to encryption, a backdoor in to all communication; and
before him, Milliband pushed through that awful 'think of the children'
countrywide porn block. Those are the heads of the two major parties, both
pushing through awful legislation.

~~~
zzzcpan
They are not stupid. They want to protect their power and are willing to say
anything for this, invent any excuse.

~~~
grkvlt
No, I think they really don't fully understand the technical implications of
the policies, so they implement what the majority of the public _says_ they
want (protection from terrorists, paedopholes and so on) without worrying
about implications that only a minority say they care about. Perhaps with
better science and technology advice they would choose differently?

I really don't think that this is an instance of Milliband trying to "protect
his power" by allowing GCHQ to surveil the Internet...

------
mercurial
On the other hand, secret trade deals like TTIP are, according to O'Brien, er,
Cameron, perfectly fine.

I suppose it's one way of dealing with terrorists who "hate our freedoms", you
just need to take these freedoms away one by one until they have nothing left
to hate...

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oconnore
Is there any evidence that terrorists prefer Facebook over GPG?

~~~
darkstar999
Irrelevant - law enforcement wants a backdoor into _everything_.

~~~
venomsnake
Drop the charade and call them with their real name - repression apparatus.

------
venomsnake
Can someone explain what the UK public finds in Cameron - his economic policy
has been mixed bag at best, foreign policy is same and internal policy - you
have the whole Scotland situation - i have a feeling that Downing street
unlike the Scots prefer to forget about the whole "devolution max" stuff.

8 years into depression and London situation getting somewhat tense - there
should be at least figurative heads rolling, and yet he get reelected and
entrusted with more power ...

------
eloy
Then the terrorists will move to different services. If you want to prevent
that, you have to shut down the internet, which is quite impossible due to the
decentralized structure of TCP/IP. Someone should explain the technical
working of the internet to this poor guy.

The other possibility is that he is just forwarding the internal GCHQ lobby,
and he knows that this plan is evil and only about controlling citizens.

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onewaystreet
This is a big reversal considering the UK had been the one pushing Facebook
and others into implementing stricter privacy controls.

~~~
noir_lord
> implementing stricter privacy controls.

except for them of course.

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mastermojo
Terrorists will use other forms of communication if you open up Twitter and
Facebook. In fact, I'm pretty sure the smart ones aren't using these services
right now. The unfortunate reality is that terrorists will always have a safe
space to communicate if they want it, from message encryption to passing notes
in a park.

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krylon
That man is un-freaking-believable!

What's even harder to believe, though, is that the British actually _re-
elected_ him!

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mdekkers
> "We just want to ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to
> communicate."

What a load of bollocks. I suspect the "terrorists" have access to their own
communications infrastructure that doesn't depend on Facebook and Twitter.
Just another push for a snoopers' charter.

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dudul
He forgot to mention pedophiles. Remember people, we do this for your safety
and your children's.

~~~
xvf33
That may be a sensitive subject around parliament.

~~~
noir_lord
Nah, they shredded everything shreddable, stuffed the 'investigation' with
cronies, faked health issues and generally buried everything in a massive
hole.

It's a solved issue.

~~~
notNow
This hole is called the "Memory Hole". If this sounds Orwellian to you, it's
because it is indeed Orwellian.

------
seba_dos1
David Cameron is unsustainable. He can no longer be tolerated in the face of
governmental terror.

------
MrZongle2
Cameron is essentially shrugging his shoulders and saying that a free society
is unsustainable.

This is quite unfortunate for our friends in the UK. Even more unfortunate for
us here in the United States is that there are plenty of halfwit
authoritarians just like him to be found in both of our major political
parties.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Unfortunately, people will keep voting for them, because they can't be having
with those dirty hippie leftists. Don't they know the holy words of Saint
Thatcher? "There Is No Alternative."

But hey, at least they're not those dirty fascists in the UKIP and BNP! I
mean, sure, they work to bring the xenophobic policies of those two parties
into the mainstream, without even the BNP's egalitarian approach to domestic
economics, but that's _totally_ a serious distinction between neoliberalized
conservatives and fascists!

~~~
yarrel
New Labour in the UK don't have a better record on technological civil
liberties.

This is part of the problem - we cannot signal our rejection of these measures
electorally.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
> New Labour in the UK don't have a better record on technological civil
> liberties.

That was, in fact, exactly my point. Neoliberal "social democratic" and
neoliberal "conservative" parties basically just pass the governance ball
back-and-forth in accordance with whose base will be more or less alienated by
what the elite's Very Serious People decree will be passed this time.

------
OedipusRex
I would love to see Twitter just say "nope".

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PavlovsCat
In order to combat ongoing human rights violations, human rights have to be
abolished bit by bit. There is nothing benign or misguided about this to me,
this is calculated and predatory.

Omniscience and omnipotence by states and corporations lead by very human,
sometimes sick people, may make the world "safer" from small fish (and even
that is not clear), but might also make powerful sadists untouchable. It might
make fixing the problems we have with corruption and abuse impossible, the
final kicking away of the ladder.

You think it can't get worse, wait until the trap actually snaps _shut_. That
happened in Germany in the 1930s and people watched on like it was a dream, a
game, or over soon.

What if that happens again, but there is no outside world to invade and rescue
anyone from themselves? What if it's not done by crazy narcissists bent on
destruction and self-destruction, but "just" people who like and got used to
power, and will not ever let it go?

I know I'm fearmongering here, but I just can't help but extrapolate and be
extremely concerned. And I know I'm not alone, I just suck at expressing it
without coming across wide-eyed. But there's better people for that, example
Eben Moglen, from "Freedom of thought requires free media" (
[http://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-
of-t...](http://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-thought-
requires-free-media) )

> We’re going to live in a world unless we do something quickly in which our
> media consume us and spit in the government’s cup. There will never have
> been any place like it before and if we let it happen, there will never be
> any place different from it again.*

and

> We have a responsibility, we know. That’s how Berlin became the freest city
> that I go to because we know, because we have a responsibility, because we
> remember, because we have been on both sides of the wall. That must not be
> lost now. If we forget, no other forgetting will ever happen. Everything
> will be remembered. Everything you read, all through life, everything you
> listened to, everything you watched, everything you searched for.

> Surely we can pass along to the next generation a world freer than that.
> Surely we must. What if we don’t?

> What will they say when they realize that we lived at the end of a thousand
> years of struggling for freedom of thought. At the end, when we had almost
> everything, we gave it away, for convenience, for social networking. Because
> Mr. Zuckerberg asked us to. Because we couldn’t find a better way to talk to
> our friends. Because we loved the beautiful pretty things that felt so warm
> in the hand. Because we didn’t really care about the future of freedom of
> thought, because we considered that to be someone else’s business. Because
> we thought it was over. Because we believed we were free. Because we didn’t
> think there was any struggling left to do. That’s why we gave it all away.

> Is that what we're gonna tell them?

> Free thought requires free media. Free media requires free technology. We
> require ethical treatment when we go to read, to write, to listen and to
> watch. Those are the hallmarks of our politics. We need to keep those
> politics until we die. Because if we don’t, something else will die.
> Something so precious that many, many of our fathers and mothers gave their
> life for it. Something so precious, that we understood it to define what it
> meant to be human; it will die.

------
notNow
"We just want to ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to
communicate. That is the challenge, and it is a challenge that will come in
front of the House."

What do Amnesty International and EIPR from Egypt have to do with terrorism
that prompted GCHQ to spy on them?

I am not saying that these two orgs are above the law but I am just wondering
what's the probable cause for these rogue spy orgs to target them and try to
collect as much info as their hands could grab.

