Today we may hear more about the Home Secretary’s proposals to snoop on all our emails and web activities.
I have commented before on this disagraceful attack upon our liberty. If she had any understanding of how the public feels, and any belief in freedom, she would send the computer salesmen packing. The answer must be “No”.
This morning I want to raise the issue of how much all this is going to cost. This government has plunged us into huge debt with many expensive over the top centralised computer systems. Why should this one be any different?
Can the Home Secretary please go back to concentrating on her personal expense forms. We might be able to afford a few more items for the second home. We certainly cannot afford her spending time signing national computer contracts on this scale.
April 27, 2009
Those up to no good will be sending emails in code or highly encrypted. Therefore this snooping is nothing more than a further attempt to make the middle classes toe the line for this communist Governments agenda.
April 27, 2009
Comrade! That is Trotskyist talk.
We have ways of preventing this……..
April 27, 2009
Ian Jones: “Those up to no good will be sending emails in code or highly encrypted.”
I have to disagree with your assertion. Encryption is not the mark of the terrorist or criminal, simply a tool used by anyone who knows how the internet transports data.
Your browser uses ‘strong encryption’ otherwise it would be impossible to carry on ‘online banking’.
Anytime you send a document to a client, you should use encryption to ensure the confidentiality of the data.
To do otherwise, as we have seen on numerous occasions with the civil service, is sheer negligence.
April 27, 2009
If you have, Comrade, nothing to hide, then you will not encrypt.
April 27, 2009
If government continues this sort of pressure, I can see thousands of folk abandoning the Internet altogether. That will mean the ISPs get less income as people pull the plugs on their subscriptions; same with web hosting companies and many other Internet-related services. That will result in more job cuts and more businesses gone.
I usually use a proxy server now to go online; not because I go to dodgy sites but because what I view and read is my business, not the Home Office’s. The fact that I have “nothing to hide” is irrelevant, why should my favourite websites be spied on? Presumably it will be recorded as a “suspicious behaviour pattern” if I visit all the Opposition websites and blogs, and I could be cut off or arrested for crimes against the government.
If they find a way to get round proxies, then that will really be the end of it, while Labour are in office. Divide and conquer seems to be the plan. They know that the Internet is a freedom-tool of the people, so therefore it must be seized and stifled at all costs.
I already refuse to own a mobile phone and avoid making any phonecalls at all via landline. Once emails are completely stuffed it’ll be back to snail-mail….at which point, presumably the postman will be given Home Office powers to selectively steam open and read those as well?!
April 27, 2009
Comrade! It appears that you were in Godalming last Saturday. We know the address which you visited between 11 and 11.30 a.m. At the moment we plan to take no further action.
April 27, 2009
John
Doubtless all of us who read and then contribute to your website will be on some sort of list as Political activists in the future.
Thats if we are not already.
We used to have reasonable free speech in this Country, but sadly no longer.
The PC Brigades, the Terror Acts, the Police Force and a whole host of other organisations stopped that many years ago.
Will we ever regain the way of life we once had and took for granted. ?
Unlikely.
History has shown that once the State starts to repress and control then very rarely is it won back.
April 27, 2009
I disagree, We will take this country back, and yes, I’m well aware I’m on a list, they have made that perfectly clear by opening my letters to my children on numerous occaisions.
(Unfavourable statement about Home Sec removed)
April 27, 2009
Miss Smith is an ex-school teacher.
She must have read 1984 and Animal Farm and thought they were lessons in “How to Govern the UK.”
April 27, 2009
If Jackie or her husband care to watch exotic films or visit colourful websites, then so long as it is at his own expense, I do not care, nor is it my concern.
The reverse also applies!
April 27, 2009
With regard to such profound State snooping; only those who would abuse this power would seek it. Those who would not abuse it, would not seek it, *for they know how it would be abused*.
I note some news today on the BBC that Labour (and apparently the Conservatives too) wish to pass new law such that fathers who do not pay maintence have their passports and driving licenses automatically confiscated; that is to say, they are prevented by the State from leaving the country *as a matter of course*, regardless of the rights or wrongs or details of their case, if they have not paid maintenance.
Freedom of movement is a profound and basic right. If it is removed from an individual by the State without due process – no jury, no trial – then by God, we’re living in hell.
I really am at the point now where news coming from the UK is so awful, so repeatedly awful, time and again, so depressing, that I am going to have to step back from it for a while. I just can’t bear reading and knowing again and again of the appalling acts of the current Government.
April 27, 2009
The Intention of the childrens act was for both Parents to have equal shared Residency, this very rarely happens because there is a greatt deal of money to be made from tearing children from their fathers, not to mention the loss of their stabilising influence on youngsters.
More chavs on street corners = more need for a police state.
100,000 fathers apply to the courts every year to try to get their ex partners to homour ‘contact’ arrangements.
I know of at least one case where the mothers solicitor argued the father should not have residency because it would affect the mothers financial settlement.
Of course if both parents had equal shared residency then neither would be able to lay claim to any financial help from the other, Couldn’t have equality like that could we, Equlity only applies where it helps push the Communiust agenda, otherwise it is to be resisted.
Equality is a sham, it is used selectively to batter home something totally different.
April 27, 2009
When it all seems too depressing, I think of the motto adopted by the American General, Joe Stillwell, during the darkest days of World War ll.
“Illigitimi non carborundum.” (Don’t let the b——s grind you down!)
April 27, 2009
I heard this morning that the Home Secretary has made a statement that the government will not be recording every email, mobile phone call and phone call.
Phew!
However, service providers are expected to keep detailed records that can be accessed if necessary.
A subtle difference.
Just for a laugh, I’m going to ask my ISP what data they store about my use of the internet.
April 27, 2009
Yes, I read the statement about the announcement this afternoon. For the life of me i cannot see how that changes the public’s position. What i understand it at present is that the ISP’s will save it all. But the State will have the same access to it – and will be able to pass on to various govt agencies. Need to read the original proposal and this one to find out the difference.
April 27, 2009
Brian
Same records kept, just a different source keeps it, but all can be seen by Government if they request it.
Reason
If somone looses a memory stick/CD, then only some of the info is lost, not all of it.
Understand from the National Press that an overseas security person (government employed) has lost another memory stick of late.
This we are informed (by the Press) has led to a five year international investigation into drug smuggling having to be abandoned at a cost of millions of pounds.
Suggestion was that it contained all of the details of undercover agents working worldwide.
Will that person be sacked ??????
April 27, 2009
I deliberately wrote a sinister comment under the first three blogs. I nearly did it for all of them.
I nearly wrote, “We know where you live”.
I even more nearly wrote: “We know where your mother lives”.
Remember how the family of Damien Green were terrified by the idiotic and clumsy Police raid?
Anyone who thinks that the government – any government – has our best interests at heart is misguided.
Anyone who trusts the Police to be sympathetic to our little foibles is an idiot.
The good news is that Mr Cameron seems, at the moment at least, to be the type of person who can actually respect personal liberty. He does not appear to be Big Brown Brother.
So that, at least, is a glimmer.
Isn’t it?
April 27, 2009
It wont do her / them any good, I’ve and many others been downloading all the Incriminating evidence against these traitorous despots for over a year now, burning them to dvd disk with the message to copy and redistribute, and randomly posting them through peoples letter boxes and handing them out at shops, mailing them all over the country.
Awakening them to the Real world we live in.
It may take some time but it’s Game over I think, the truth will always bubble to the surface eventually.
April 28, 2009
The Chiltern Hundreds for Ms Smith I reckon, if she insists on hiding from the House.
I’m sure you could find enough backers for that outcome.