UK FOLK: Big Brother is watching you on t'internet...

[MinionZombie]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencean...or-a-year.html I'm flabbergasted that this Stasi-like gubment got this through, but on the other hand I'm not surprised, they've bashed through endless reams of liberty assaulting garbage over the years, and this is the latest goose-stepping number from Brown & Co. Basically, when and where you go online, and to whom and when you email, will be stored for a year. WHY do the gubment need this info for tens of millions of people? Answer, they don't - but this is the same shower of shites who want to database your info from MySpace, Bebo and Facebook as well as put black boxes in your car showing where you are, where you've been, when you were there and how fast you were driving. Add in a significant slice of hypocrisy what with various ministers rabble-rabble-rabbling about their expenses details being touted around for the highest bidder (yet another surefire sign of the sheer insecurity of personal data in the UK), and it's just another reason why Britain's gone down the toilet. ... Oh and don't even get me started on how Labour have been sliming around trying to tell anyone that'll listen/perpetuate their lies, that going to the IMF won't be the humiliating emergency move of desperation that it ACTUALLY is, but instead it'll be like "going to a spa" ... ... I'm NOT even joking.

[Tricky]

There's one word the government is using which means they can get any of these liberty eroding policies made law without a problem - "terrorism" While i agreed with the initial measures that were taken on terrorism back in 2001 after 9/11,its long since become an excuse to spy on the ordinary citizen without good reason! Another excuse they use is that "if your not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about" which is a load of crap, because using these new powers, scores of people have been caught & fined for doing things that joe public wouldnt even realise is now a "crime", such as having too much litter or wrong type of litter in their dustbin or passing on email jokes about terrorism, or being slightly outside a postcode area & their kids going to the "wrong school" etc... The government & local councils are using anti-terrorism laws to catch ordinary people out on all sorts of irrelevant & pathetic charges and just to simply spy on us! And all this while the governments own ministers are fighting desperately hard to keep their own lives private & away from scrutiny so that the public cant find out how much of our taxes they waste on themselves & their extravagant lifestyles or be caught out on any kind of sleaze accusations, it makes me sick! Going off topic slightly, have you seen those police posters going up in bus shelters recently? they seem quite sinister to me! i cant find an example to post, but they're all over in Hull!

[Yojimbo]

Sounds like you guys are under the same sort of scrutiny that we have been under here in the USA since 9/11- constitutionally guaranteed rights being summararily set aside in the name of protecting the greater good from terrorists. I'm a patriotic, law abiding citizen with no love for terrorists, mind you. In this regard, loss of constitutionally guaranteed rights with little recourse troubles me, as I am sure it troubles all. Not that if they delved into my internet files or telephone calls am I worried that they would come after me, however I find the idea that they can do so with impunity troubles me. That being said, it does not surprise me in the least since back in WWII FDR was able to, without any trouble, issue an order which suspended the civil rights of Japanese American citizens living on the West Coast. As you know, under the auspices of Executive order 9066 these American Citizens were forced to liquidate their assets down to whatever they could fit into two suitcases per adult person, rounded up and sent to concentration camps where they were imprisoned under armed guard. Since then, it has been proven that these American Citizens were stripped of their rights and imprisoned for no other reason than their race. My point is, with a track record such as this I am not at all surprised that will do whatever they want, whether or not it is fitting within the boundaries set in the Constitution by the founding fathers. Perhaps the powers that be in the UK are more level headed than FDR was during WWII. I cannot say the same for the government of the USA.

[krakenslayer]

This makes me really angry. Just because there are dangerous and psychopathic people out there doesn't mean that innocent people like us should be treated like criminals. It's shit like this that makes people feel paranoid and victimised which, in turn, is how more terrorists are created.

[blind2d]

Excellent point, kraken. And whatever happened to America being the land of the free? Didn't we establish colonies here in order to escape from this type of tyranny? How democratic is this really? Why aren't there any bands out there tackling these subjects? Is Area 51 real? I'm sick of this 1984 crap. You know it's only going to get worse...

[MinionZombie]

Kraken - and it's also an example of how the terrorists have won arguably. Our way of life has been changed and made a misery of liberty-assault spying, tracking, databasing and recording, plus the difficulty in getting on a plane etc etc. Tricky - you mean the blue coloured advert about something to do with 'what you say, evidence' or something like that? I saw that in the paper, but I didn't pay much attention - what's it about, why is it needed, and I wonder how much tax payer money was wasted on that. That's another thing this shower of shites do waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much of - advertising - there was one on the other day (featuring Johnny from Big Brother 3) telling us to eat our "five a day" - *sigh* FUCK OFF!!!!!!!!!! As for mis-use of the terrorism act - it's seriously used to spy on people for dog fouling. I don't like dog shit on the pavement either, but for fuck's sake. I'd rather step around the odd turd and not have the terrorism act, than live in 1984.

[Neil]

The main thing that bothers me here is the expense/waste... They can read my emails all they like - I don't care...

[MinionZombie]

The main thing that bothers me here is the expense/waste... They can read my emails all they like - I don't care... To be honest, it's attitudes like that which have led to the sheer volume of snooping we have today. It might not appear to be important to some, but it bloody well is.

[capncnut]

The main thing that bothers me here is the expense/waste... They can read my emails all they like - I don't care... Quite agree, it's a ridiculous waste of effort. Other than the odd porn site, there's nothing they can pull me up for. I don't give two shits if they go through my emails.

[Eyebiter]

[krakenslayer]

You gotta be fucking kidding, right?

[Craig]

You gotta be fucking kidding, right? I don't live in London, but I'm pretty sure these things were put up only a couple of years before the 7th July bombings. I don't know what they were going for with this design but it certainly seems like they're not even trying to hide their dream of future where everyone is under constant surveillance by the powers that be, by that I mean moreso than they already are.

[SymphonicX]

I'm not sure there's a bunch of people sitting around saying "how can we make this more like 1984"? I certainly don't think there's any malice in that poster - but when you add together the very obvious facts and look at campaigns like that, it's hard not to feel as though Big Brother is literally staring down your neck wherever you are. They just don't realise that they're naturally creating this society and it's getting worse - and with policies like these which just infringe on 99% of the innnocent population, it's about time someone puts a stop to this madness, before it all gets a bit too silly.

[MinionZombie]

Fortunately there's a bunch of folk and MPs that just got going with "The Convention of Modern Liberty" - a pressure group if you will, to try and get this shit to stop, and more importantly, gotten rid of. In a free society there's always a bit of danger - BUT IT'S A FREE SOCIETY. You can't legislate against, and spy on, and watch 99.5% of people simply because there's 0.5% of the population out there fucking people's days up. And regardless of whether you care or not if the gubment is looking at your traffic (I, like the vast, vast, vast majority of people in the UK will provide exceptionally boring reading for some computer/bought vote - an endless cycle of email/HPOTD/social networking/lolcats/youtube and repeat) ... but anyway, regardless of your own indifference, it's simply not ethical. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should - and likewise, it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Not the other way around - this is the country where toddlers have their DNA stored on the DNA database afterall (FOR WHAT POSSIBLE USE???!!!) - the same country where innocent people can't get their DNA taken off the DNA database. It's basic freedoms and liberty, and this shower of shites in power couldn't give a stuff - and yet they whine all the way to their second home when someone threatens to release their expense reports. Gee, really secure data there eh? Much like the 25 million people's information that was lost in the post, or the multitude of laptops left on trains by gubment drones.

[SymphonicX]

Train announced once: "Please remember to take all your belongings with you, this is especially important if you work for Her Majesty's Government" hilarious My gf heard this: "Welcome to Kings Cross, gateway to the universe" Sorry, back to topic