Is anyone else more worried about M15 than about terrorism.

[batshitlady]

That's it really. The state wants ever more surveillance power, ever more restriction on freedom of speech and even, in universities, freedom of thought. It seems to me that it's in their nature to ask for more powers and restrictions to our freedoms and privacy. Are we just going to let them have it???

CrumbledFeta, i dont know which country it was, but what was their general human rights record like? If bad, i am genuinely appalled

What Hotfuzzra said.

Blimey, North Korea and China? Really? This country will never be like that precisely BECAUSE our security forces exist to stop the lunatics taking over the asylum. If you want to try and hinder their work by protesting against their methods which would in reality have no real effect on you whatsoever, then you go right ahead. See where this country ends up then.

Let people get on and do their jobs without the conspiracy fanatics making it harder for them.

This thread is appalling

I see the uk sliding slowly towards fascism and state control. I worry for my childrens future tbh.

Thank you, CurlyhairedAssassin - that's what I wanted to say.

Fascism and state control? You see, this is where it's all going wrong. People interpret things a certain way and blow it up out of all proportions. I sometimes wonder whether people do it because they like the drama of it all. More exciting to them than the mundane reality of what mass surveillance actually involves, and completely forgetting the purpose behind it.

You can read what you like in the media about how our security forces operate and whip yourself into a frenzy over it (as is the media's intention - it sells papers, doesn't it?), but you would only be hearing half the story.

And so no,OP, I do NOT worry more about MI5 than about terrorism. I worry more that there are not enough security staff to monitor all the threats, that they are working in what can be a very difficult job, with disruption to their personal life, often on a relative pittance with no chance of acknowledgement of that from outsiders. And to top it off, they have to put up with daft threads like this, and the responses to it!

I take a different view to you Curly, I do not agree with the creep, creep of surveillance and erosion of privacy. I think you are naive in your belief that it is all for the greater good and that it will ultimately keep us safe and free and have no real effect on us.

As to your dismissive statement that those who hold differing opinions to you are whipping themselves into a frenzy or liking the drama shows how little you understand about privacy and freedom and the impact the loss of them would have.

I value my privacy, I give details of me to those who I choose to and those who need to have them. I do not want faceless individuals having covert access to information/surveillance of me.

Bakeoffcake- you are very naive.

There are files on lots of very ordinary people.

When they do background checks it's creepy what tiny seemingly inconsequential details they can have about normal peoples lives.

This thread shows how well they've duped the public into thinking they are harmless.

Do you seriously think M15 are interested in you?

Do you seriously think it's only MI5 that has access to this information? Your local police can get it. I've got a recollection that even local councils can get hold of your text message logs.

The Snowden leaks showed that there were US security operatives who were accessing private information because of personal grudges or prurient interest with little to no oversight. Forgive my cynicism but I have no confidence whatsoever that the UK security services are any more competently regulated or interested in following the rules than their US counterparts.

Indeed, given the close cooperation between the NSA and GCHQ ("Hey, NSA, we want some UK people monitored but we want some plausible deniabilty. Can you shake them down then give us the info?" "Sure thing, bud, as long as you do the same for us.") I'd be amazed if the same shit wasn't being pulled on both sides of the Atlantic.

Thinking back to what was proposed a while back, the big change here is that ISPs etc have to keep records of usage, like we'd keep our own details in the Cloud, just in case required, yes?.

To my knowledge the internet 'surveillance' will be no different to telephone taps, if anyone in the intelligence services wants to see emails/browser history, they need a court order - so a judge has to convinced for them to gain access.

Am I correct in thinking that with a judge involved, there will less free access to our details by our security services, than the hackers who appear to get into banks and public sector files on us with impunity?

I do not give a monkeys who has access to my phone/email or any personal information if it stops any act of terrorism. As I know somebody who was injured (luckily minor) in the 7/7 bombings then anything MI5 does to stop it happening again is fine by me.

Nobody see the contradiction of the argument for surveillance to maintain our freedom

Govt : we're only trying to protect you
People: by spying on us
Govt: yes if we know everything about you we can protect your right to privacy

Light it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if they had a "file" on me.

They may collect data but why would they do anything with it when they are rather busy trying to stop terrorists?

Bakeoffcake and when the information in that file is shared with other people/agencies without your knowledge or consent and they interpret the information in a different way?

Data collected can and will be used and subject to varying interpretations depending on the parameters set for the analysis.

Govt : we're only trying to protect you
People: by spying on us
Govt: yes if we know everything about you we can protect your right to privacy

If the security services need a court order for access to our internet details, they clearly won't be spying on 64 million people, so won't know everything about "us" 64 million people, now will they?

How many UK security threats that could end up with the loss of lives of innocents do we need to have per year for people who have nothing to fear, to be comfortable having the security services accessing suspects details, 100, 1000, 10,000?

The East German Stasi had so much info, they had no chance of processing it - so files on every citizen does NOT work.

I do not give a monkeys who has access to my phone/email or any personal information if it stops any act of terrorism.

Good for you, but if they want mine they're going to have to get a Judge to issue a warrant, and maybe not even then...

The East German Stasi had so much info, they had no chance of processing it - so files on every citizen does NOT work

Yeah, paper files, 20 odd years ago. Things have moved on a bit...

Do you seriously think it's only MI5 that has access to this information? Your local police can get it. I've got a recollection that even local councils can get hold of your text message logs.

What does your local police even mean? Do you know what threshold we need to request things like this? We need inspector's and sometimes superintendent's or judge's authorisation! We don't even routinely get this authorised for MisPers and dead bodies!

The Snowden leaks showed that there were US security operatives who were accessing private information because of personal grudges or prurient interest with little to no oversight. Forgive my cynicism but I have no confidence whatsoever that the UK security services are any more competently regulated or interested in following the rules than their US counterparts.
I can't vouch for security services but police get it drummed into us re data protection, privacy, misuse of data etc
Officers have (rightfully) lost their jobs for misuse of PNC so I'd be shocked to hear that MI5 used government systems for personal grudges! But as I said before I'm probably very naive.

If there was a massive terrorist attack tomorrow that killed some of your loved ones, there's no way you'd all be saying 'At least the attacker had his internet privacy' you'd all be asking 'Why wasn't something done... Surely "they" knew about this guy...'

The Stasi certainly caught many, many people in their net through their methods of surveillance.

Everyone was spying on everyone else, almost. And most people did it without being made to. People are generally horrible :( their favourite method of control was a type a gaslighting aimed at psychologically destroying possible future dissidents before they could become a threat. Totalitarian states dont care if you are a 'criminal' or not

Funnily enough I heard Amnesty's comments on the proposals earlier and I actually though Amnesty certainly don't speak for me.

The Op mentions that they are trying to restrict Freedom of Thought at university.what utter rubbish they are trying to stop evil preachers encouraging people to murder others. Or is that the sort of Thought you want to encourage op?

Imperialleather: I think it might well be. OP had better watch out before he/she gets arrested.

Oh no, wait. There is not a cat in hell's chance that would happen. The totalitarians must try much harder.

Leaving the thread now. There is too much opinion being bandied about by people who dont actually know about the methods of operation. Who seem to think our security sevices are run like Dr Evil's Secret Lair.

"The East German Stasi had so much info, they had no chance of processing it "

As a pp said they were paper records. With current technology its entirely possible for masses of records held on computer to be analysed very quickly with the right software.

Fwiw I'm from a military background with some experience of security services and real life practice. The law and what actually happens are 2 different things.

I'm also possibly more aware of the threat of terrorism and what it feels like than most.

Doesn't mean I think we should be blindly allowing the Govt to go unchallenged in the way they are increasingly reducing the realm of personal privacy.

The East German Stasi had so much info, they had no chance of processing it - so files on every citizen does NOT work

Yeah, paper files, 20 odd years ago. Things have moved on a bit...

I grant you that point, but unless in a country that fears free speech and every citizen, a country has no need to even THINK of monitoring every citizen.

The fact is with technology having moved on from worrying about subversive bits of paper being passed from one citizen to another in a country, the security forces need to be able to follow the internet flows into this country that can (and do) radicalise people.

If a citizen does not READ about material produced by, or wish contact with radicals, why would they need to worry about internet surveillance, any more than they need to currently worry about their phone calls being monitored?

For those saying 'the law and what happens are two different things' I say either than why are you worried if it happens already and HOW could that material be used to convict, if incriminating evidence is illegally gathered?

How many posts on this board/thread pretending to be outraged UK citizens could be coming from ISIS radicals in Syria or any other country?

The rest of the posters on here have no idea do they?

We do not need MORE tube bombs etc getting that one picture of human death and misery to THEN say, 'ok, best we give our security forces what they need.'