For those worried about government surveillance and civil liberties

[policywonk]

If the government is so keen to see all our emails, maybe we should send them on of our own accord...

Details here

I anticipate that this will turn into a we-hate-Jacqui-Smith thread, so can I just say that on most issues she's alright with me. Not on this one though.

Well yes, viciously infringing people's civil liberties is not a great move, popularity-wise.

BTW Kay, can you bear to do this?

A novel and funny idea!

I have signed up. And not just because PolicyWonk/BenGoldacre told me too

Darn that Twitter feed.

Gizmo, did you see/know that there is a Commons Committee meeting tomorrow about the future of electricity networks?

I had a vague feeling in my waters, PW, but not an actual date. Bollocks, I would have liked to see that (or send one of my representatives on earth). Will Hansard report proceedings, or is there another way of getting my hands on the discussion?

You can watch it live here or watch it again afterwards.

Fantastic - I love watching tele legitimately at work.

Bump for the evening awkward squad.

I see that the idea has been dropped now.

People should get used to the idea that ANYTHING you do on the internet is not private. The only uncertainty, is how well organised/widespread the storage and retrieval is.
Never commit anything to email that you mind about the whole world knowing.

nightbynight - I endorse that. In particular, never send anything on email at work that you do not want to be read out in a Court of Law in 3 years time and used against you.

However, I have read on another blog that deals with civil liberties that the Govt has no idea just how much info there is out there. The sheer volumes of data flowing through the UK internet systems are so huge it cannot be stored in reality. They can pick bits up with 'package sniffing' but only by targeting specific individuals not just following and recording everyone. The NHS computer system debacle shows how difficult storing and retrieving quite routine and well ordered data really is.

That said, I never post anything on the internet or email that I would not be prepared to have my RL name attached to. I post on a lot of different blogs and forums always under different names so no one can follow me around and piece my life together and work out who I really am.

Between me and my wife we have a huge number of Google hits attached to our names and yet we are totally private citizens. We never asked to be databased and recorded by Google but that is modern life.

We take great pains to protect our identies and that of our children. We shred every bit of paper that comes into our house and do not let our children be photographed at school with their names attached. They are not allowed to sign up for any internet service. Facebook - absolutely no way.

The one thing I will not tolerate ever is my children being tagged, recorded fingerprinted and databased. If that happens I will leave the country.

I do think a Tory Govt will roll back a lot of the creep of surveilance on private citizens - but not all.

So ABetaDad, you wouldn't let your kids be in the school magazine even..? + don't you think that your children are already tagged - they presumably have a passport, a national health number, an NI number. Surely you have to be in the system to get the benefits (education, NHS, etc). So where do you draw the line? Am not having a go, only curious that you think you can be private, when from birth we're very definitely not and sometimes for good reason too. We're part of a society that has systems for all, and I like the NHS, I like free education, am happy for me/ my kids to be on databases so they get that service iyswim. And I don't want to stop say DS being in the school magazine as he'd love it and it makes him feel more a part of the place. So does that make me naive?

smee - you are right in the sense that they do have NI numbers etc. However, what am talking about is the metadatabase idea where all information on kids will be collated and cross referenced and then their fingerprints, iris scan, ID card number, photo, email contacts, website visits, Facebook, mobile and landline contacts, credit card bank account tax account, added to that.

A metadtabase is where we are going. I will never let my kids put their finger in one of those school library card/lunch time finger print scanners for this reason. I know they cannot reconstruct a fingerprint but they could still be used to trace kids quite easily by lifting fingerprints from a crime scene and then systematiclly feeding the lifted print through the software until a match is found.

At the moment, there is data on all of us held by Govt but it is no way to cross reference that easily so some petty bureacrat somewhere cannot sit as his PC just leafing through your life. That is what I am trying to avoid.

I do let my kids go on the school website and magazine but not with names attached. Once someone has a name and a positive photo your life is an open book. If I had your name, photo and a rough location of where you worked I could trace you in about 5 minutes. How do you think journalists find out where members of the public live so they can doorstep them? Some of our close friends do not know very much if anything about certain aspects of our life. I do not see why Govt should.

You are not being naieve - it is OK at the moment. It is where we are going that bothers me and once kids are on a database they will never get off it.

But we're all already on it. Anybody with any clue will already be able to track anybody down including you, no matter how careful you are. My point I suppose is the stable door's already open. I've done a lot of research into all this, and we are all already open books to authority and really to anyone else who has the skill to look. The way I differ from you (I think!), is that it genuinely doesn't bother me in lots of ways. For society to work, we need to know who's in it. The negatives of our surveillance culture are yelled about loudly, but people often forget the positives. I'm not saying there shouldn't be checks as I worry about it all too, but equally I think we can be slightly too paranoid about it all.