I Love Lamp wrote:
Wow, this is really quite scary. The UK gets more fucked up each year. For your 'enhanced security'.

This is what America is going to become... the UK/EU is the test bed for new fascist ideas to invade privacy...

dc0de wrote:

I Love Lamp wrote:
Wow, this is really quite scary. The UK gets more fucked up each year. For your 'enhanced security'.

This is what America is going to become... the UK/EU is the test bed for new fascist ideas to invade privacy...

that's nonsense

i live in a country with a high level of surveilance but i'm not such a paranoid fool as to think the government is spying to me, it's to prevent crime, traffic accidents etc maybe you have too much of a dogmatic approach whereas the British are notoriously practical. We have a free press and no equivilent of Fox News, your Right wing talk radio, nobody in any of the major political parties would suggest banning abortion, argue the validity of creationism (or that it should be on a science curriculum), we don't have the death penalty and have a lower per capita murder rate, we don't have guns and (apart from extremely rare occasions like Dunblane) mass shootings, we don't have masses of white power nutters armed to the teeth hold up in Wales (note Montana), we have an admittedly not perfect system of universal health care (get cancer in the US and if you're uninsured then you're screwed -- note a recent NYT op-ed)

this country is far from perfect but i think you need a little perspective and a closer look at some of what Bush has been doing re surveilance and torture
Briain still adheres to the Geneva Convention

plus incidently the UK and the EU are not synonymous

before you start accusing countries of right wing extremism maybe you should look closer to home

oh i'm forgetting we have openly gay government ministers (equivalent of cabinet secretary) and we have gay civil unions (one step below the full recognition of gay marriage) and we had a woman leader

I think this is a fascinating subject, so allow me to interject a few comments in the interests of rational debate. Certainly it's pointless to turn this into a fight over whose country is more fucked up at the moment, so I'll try to avoid that and be objective.

ubernoir wrote:
i live in a country with a high level of surveilance but i'm not such a paranoid fool as to think the government is spying to me

Are you also prepared to believe that no government or administration ever will?

We have a free press and no equivilent of Fox News, ...

In this segment you appear to be arguing that because your other institutions of government and society are somewhat more modern and effective than those in the U.S. that surveillance isn't a major concern. Is this because the press represents an effective check on overzealous monitors? Because the British people and politicians are more likely to oppose misuse of surveillance technology? Is it because of some British attitude towards homogeneity that affects the level of outrage over targeting potential criminals or trouble-makers?

i think you need a little perspective and a closer look at some of what Bush has been doing re surveilance

Some definite concerns here. It is important to note that the US has a damn lot of cameras as well, only a large portion of them are owned by private businesses, and only happen to sometimes cover public streets, etc. There are some issues of accountability to be discussed here, but there's an argument that the use of those cameras by law enforcement is less troublesome, since at least some non-law-enforcement folks have likely had access.

before you start accusing countries of right wing extremism maybe you should look closer to home

Speaking for myself only, and not in defense of the grandparent post, I do, and am. Looking closer to home, that is. Nonetheless, it's worth keeping in mind that the UK doesn't have to itself become a fascist state to be a current testbed for methods and technologies that could support fascism in other places. The pragmatic British may have everything under control, but in a connected world, the export of these technologies and methods is a concern to those of us who live in, ahem, less pragmatic places that may take a cue from London.

All that being said, I think it's naive to assume we can put the surveillance genie back in the bottle. I don't see how it can be legislated away or controlled via restriction. I lean towards David Brin'sposition: thinking that we can prevent widespread surveillance will only force the surveillance further underground where we can't get at it. There will always be powerful men who wish to exert greater control through monitoring, and the will to find secret ways to do so. I'm not yet co... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

k wrote:
I think this is a fascinating subject, so allow me to interject a few comments in the interests of rational debate. Certainly it's pointless to turn this into a fight over whose country is more fucked up at the moment, so I'll try to avoid that and be objective.

ubernoir wrote:
i live in a country with a high level of surveilance but i'm not such a paranoid fool as to think the government is spying to me

Are you also prepared to believe that no government or administration ever will?

We have a free press and no equivilent of Fox News, ...

In this segment you appear to be arguing that because your other institutions of government and society are somewhat more modern and effective than those in the U.S. that surveillance isn't a major concern. Is this because the press represents an effective check on overzealous monitors? Because the British people and politicians are more likely to oppose misuse of surveillance technology? Is it because of some British attitude towards homogeneity that affects the level of outrage over targeting potential criminals or trouble-makers?

i think you need a little perspective and a closer look at some of what Bush has been doing re surveilance

Some definite concerns here. It is important to note that the US a damn lot of cameras as well, only a large portion of them are owned by private businesses, and only happen to sometimes cover public streets, etc. There are some issues of accountability to be discussed here, but there's an argument that the use of those cameras by law enforcement is less troublesome, since at least some non-law-enforcement folks have likely had access.

before you start accusing countries of right wing extremism maybe you should look closer to home

Speaking for myself only, and not in defense of the grandparent post, I do, and am. Looking closer to home, that is. Nonetheless, it's worth keeping in mind that the UK doesn't have to itself become a fascist state to be a current testbed for methods and technologies that could support fascism in other places. The pragmatic British may have everything under control, but in a connected world, the export of these technologies and methods is a concern to those of us who live in, ahem, less pragmatic places that may take a cue from London.

All that being said, I think it's naive to assume we can put the surveillance genie back in the bottle. I don't see how it can be legislated away or controlled via restriction. I lean towards David Brin'sposition: thinking that we can prevent widespread surveillance will only force the surveillance further underground where we can't get at it. There will always be powerful men who wish to exert greater control through monitoring, and the will to find secret ways to ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

I'll have much more on this thread later. The original comment about the UK being a test model for other country's domestic surveillance efforts is a point I've made repeatedly and which I'm quite prepared to defend. I just want to point out that what this assumption:

k wrote:
2. it is impractical to control the use... of surveillance... through legislation,

actually means is: We don't need the 4th amendment, the FISA, or the ECPA. At best they are ineffective.

I strongly disagree with that. Recent controversies notwithstanding our government usually does obey these regulations and they do have a significant impact on the nature of our society. The embrace of legalized and ubiquitous surveillance by both state and citizen involves an oversimplified, utopian view of humanity that is on par with the accidents of communism. Perfect enforcement of perfect regulations by perfect people is a recipie for a socially impoverished society.

Decius wrote:

k wrote:
2. it is impractical to control the use... of surveillance... through legislation,

actually means is: We don't need the 4th amendment, the FISA, or the ECPA. At best they are ineffective.

I perhaps should have been more precise. Allow me to append the word "alone" after "legislation" above. I certainly think the structures you enumerate are valuable as far as they go, I simply think they're insufficient. I don't believe the recent abuses are in any way the end of the story, or that the end result will be more effective supervision. Rather, I think it's quite dangerous to assume that the various egg-faced bureaucrats and agents in the current administration (or their replacements, perhaps) aren't considering how to make the process more clandestine.

In short, perhaps, my faith has been shaken deeply in congress as an effective check against actions of the executive branch and agents of the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies that serve it.

The embrace of legalized and ubiquitous surveillance by both state and citizen involves an oversimplified, utopian view of humanity that is on par with the accidents of communism.

I look forward to hearing more about your position here.

Perfect enforcement of perfect regulations by perfect people is a recipie for a socially impoverished society.

Which is precisely why I don't think regulation is sufficient. It cannot properly contain the likely abuses of this power. At present, the only way I can see to effectively prevent abuses is for the powerful few to realize that their public actions are likely to be scrutinized as well. It's harder to "disappear" someone if a half dozen cameras see you do it.

ubernoir wrote:

that's nonsense

i live in a country with a high level of surveilance but i'm not such a paranoid fool as to think the government is spying to me, it's to prevent crime, traffic accidents etc maybe you have too much of a dogmatic approach whereas the British are notoriously practical.

In a functional democracy, a level of cynicism of the government is needed for it to continue to be healthy. Trusting all the laws to be fair all the time is dangerous in a democracy, so a surveillance society can be especially chilling. Combined with the fact that when authorities get new powers which are not in check, they nearly always abuse them.

You're right about Fox media though, and Murdoch has more of a corner on your news than in the US. The main difference is that Fox News US is right wing, British Fox Media is all frivolous crap about royalty rather than about issues that affect people.

When i said 'fucked up', i was referring to the sign and its context. Mass surveillance freaks me out. It really wasn't a social commentary on the UK as a whole.

I Love Lamp wrote:
Wow, this is really quite scary. The UK gets more fucked up each year. For your 'enhanced security'.

i cetainly wouldn't describe the UK as fucked up, i love my country and I wouldn't live anywhere else
but i grant u that poster is scary and seems to have bypassed the irony detectors