Misuse of Power

[jcrian]

Britain's extraordinary march towards a surveillance state is revealed today by shock new figures.
They show that one request is made every minute for officials to spy on someone's phone records or email accounts.
The number of Big Brother snooping missions by police, town halls and other public bodies has soared by 44 per cent in two years..........

March of the state spies: One in 78 adults came under state-sanctioned surveillance last year | Mail Online

 

[parrot]

Mis-use of power happens everywhere and I mean everywhere.

 

[ceemac]

It is a concern, of that there's no doubt. I think it may have something to do with money though.

What I mean by that is that it's much cheaper to run these things than it is to pay a police officer 25k a year for example.

In many town centres these cctv monitors save them having lots of officers present. This enables them to have one or two 'civilians' employed to 'live' view the images and report any incidents - and at a fraction of the cost of a police officer.


C

 

[Akasya]

At least in the UK we have the right to know.

Steve.

 

[ted j]

Sorry, don't get that Steve, Ricky Gervais did a series of progs about surveillance. you get "caught on camera" on average 22 times a day in the uk, and he couldn't get ANY of the tapes back (It' s still against the law though ?)...................... Ted

 

[immac]

At least in the UK we have the right to know.

Steve.

You would like to think so, but if you are one of those who has been 'snooped against' you would not know to ask the question. They do not send you a note to say "We have been looking through your email account and phone records and did not find anything, sorry."

Ian

 

[parrot]

If you have nothing to hide what's the problem or if it can prevent another 9/11 or 7/7 I'm for it.You'll probably find that it's the right on civil rights brigade,who don't really give a toss about civil rights who winge the most to get themselves noticed or justify their existance.

 

[immac]

The majority of these snooping incidents are nothing to do with terrorism, but are the work of local councils using the legislation to pry into people's private lives - this is the view of the Information Commissioner and even government lawyers.

The "if you have nothing to hide...etc" viewpoint is ridiculous in this context. The truth is that UK is subject to more surveillance, data bases and oversight of what you say and do than any other country, with China just next to us. The information Commissioner's view is that UK is: (From BBC)
" Fears that the UK would "sleep-walk into a surveillance society" have become a reality, the government's information commissioner has said.
Richard Thomas, who said he raised concerns two years ago, spoke after research found people's actions were increasingly being monitored.

Researchers highlight "dataveillance", the use of credit card, mobile phone and loyalty card information, and CCTV.

Monitoring of work rates, travel and telecommunications is also rising.


There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain - about one for every 14 people.

But surveillance ranges from US security agencies monitoring telecommunications traffic passing through Britain, to key stroke information used to gauge work rates and GPS information tracking company vehicles, the Report on the Surveillance Society says.

It predicts that by 2016 shoppers could be scanned as they enter stores, schools could bring in cards allowing parents to monitor what their children eat, and jobs may be refused to applicants who are seen as a health risk. "

 

[Akasya]

You would like to think so, but if you are one of those who has been 'snooped against' you would not know to ask the question. They do not send you a note to say "We have been looking through your email account and phone records and did not find anything, sorry."

Ian

Wow Ian, golly gosh, i thought they had Zillions of people going through ereryones phone calls. e mails and letters every day. I also thought they would have millions more Civil Servant just to write to us and let us know.

If 1500 requests are made a day, that would not be enough just to cover a day's fraudulent criminal activity, let alone other crime.

The Government has told local authorities to follow the rules properly, and has set the Information Commissioner on the task.

In my naiviety i make sure i never use the words:

Semtex, plot, bomb , conspire, Cocaine profits, laundering ill gotten gains. suitcase bomb. Richard Reed, Death to the Infidel, conflagration and such like.

I hope that by doing so i do not draw attention to the forums that i use.

Steve.

 

[immac]

I don't know why I get upset about this behaviour on the part of people supposed to be working for the people, not against them.

I have made my choice about not living in UK because of this kind of thing, if the people who live there don't mind, why should I?

Ian

 

[jcrian]

It is the fact that The snoopers are using a law originally aimed at terror suspects that bugs me.

So does it mean that all the people they are snooping on are terror suspects?

 

[immac]

It stands to reason that people in the local council office are unlikely to be on the trail of international terrorists. The majority of bogus use of this law is council workers snooping on ratepayers who have irked them - for goodness sake, access is allowed to librarians, presumably in case Osama does not return his bomb making book on time.

They are using it to check on dog fouling and applicants for school placements.

This is typical Labour, promoting a Big Brother culture.

It should immediately be restricted to the security services.

Ian

 

[Akasya]

Application have to be made amd authorised, if a local authority suspected someone of committing crimes against their family dependents, applied for pemission for surveillance, and unearthed an abuser and murderer would you complain ???

Steve.

 

[immac]

Steve, you are a trusting, innocent person. I hate to burst your bubble, but I have worked closely with these people and some of them are still my friends, so I know the level of scrutiny you think exists, actually, does not.

Even without such inside knowledge, you can surely see by cases opened up in the press that using anti-terrorist law to track-down fly tippers, parents who apply for school places and rubbish bin violations is not in the spirit of the law.

The problem with what you say is that it comes down to "the ends justify the means", which is a catch-all excuse for the state doing anything they want because they think they can.

People have worried for thousands of years about the preservation of the rights of man. Martyrs have died for it, gone to jail to uphold it and fought care-less lawmakers to prevent it - and you just want to hand it over because you think you can trust them with it.

The book "1984" was a warning, which people know about, but rarely understand, that was expressing the concern of people worried about the intrusion of government in the lives of citizens. Even ten years ago few were predicting the state of UK law as it is today and how close it would be, some would say it has passed, those Orwellian warnings.

Labour governments in post war UK have been more controlling, more interfering and more intrusive in everyday life than any party in history ( and I am not banging a drum for any other party). They are led by a belief that they know better than the individual what is good for them and they are determined to control, interfere and manipulate society in an ideologically corrupt manner.

Terrorism, and the cloak of secrecy it allows them to use, has taken the Labour ideologues off the the leash, because they can now do exactly what they like under the anti-terrorism banner and it is ideas like the one you espouse that lets them get away with it, because you imagine that they know best what is good for you.

The ends do not justify the means; individual rights are important; the state should work for the citizenry, not against it.

Ian

 

[KKOB]

Grumpy Old Sod.com - Big Brother is here. He's really here ...

 

[ceemac]

It might surprise you Ian, just how many agencies are watching you in Turkey - and you'll never know there!!


C

 

[immac]

Go on then, surprise me. How many are there?

Ian

 

[KKOB]

and don't forget that 89% of statistics are made up to scare people ! :lol:

 

[jcrian]

Application have to be made amd authorised, if a local authority suspected someone of committing crimes against their family dependents, applied for pemission for surveillance, and unearthed an abuser and murderer would you complain ???

Steve.

If you look at the title of this thread it is 'Misuse of Power'

Local authorities are using a law that was brought out to combat terrorism not for snooping on the public for other suspected misdemeanors..

 

[Rob & Juls]

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 put into law what the authorities used to do anyway. The media refer to it as "Terror Law", but that is only a small part of what it was intended for. The police use it for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder, I've just googled RIPA and read the act. I'm sure local authorities and others in some cases are using it wrongly, but it isn't just a Terror Law.
Rob