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by samizdis·6y ago·view on hn ↗
> Taken together, the requests reflect exactly what critics of the Investigatory Powers Act feared would happen: that a once-shocking power that was granted on the back of terrorism fears is being slowly extended to even the most obscure government agency for no reason other that it will make bureaucrats' lives easier.

> None of the agencies would be required to apply for warrants to access people’s internet connection data, and they would be added to another 50-plus agencies that already have access, including the Food Standards Agency, Gambling Commission, and NHS Business Services Authority.

3 comments
I find this deeply worrying, but among the people I work with and my immediate circle of friends and acquaintances I am in the minority. In my experience, people just don't care that much (a fact which I find very, very sad and troubling). My partner for example who is an otherwise intelligent woman doesn't really care - her 12 year old son even less so. In fact, I'm pretty sure he will be part of the generation that will grow up to regard privacy as some sort of slightly weird, exotic commodity.

I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and for a chunk of my life we lived with this sort of government intrusion - nay, we expected it. We expected letters from abroad to be opened and read, we expected telephone calls to be listened to and so on. Obviously, there was no judicial oversight. I remember we looked at the West with something akin to awe and longing: in the West, they don't read your mail, they don't snoop on your calls and sure as st they don't confiscate subversive magazines sent from abroad. It was like a fairy tale; in the West, they took your rights seriously.

30 years on, I look at the UK, my adopted home like a lover who fell out of love with the object of his desire. It turns out that when presented with the technical means to do so, the West is just as keen to eavesdrop and hoover up all your data: emails, phone calls, text messages, the lot.

Freedom and privacy are like a sausage comrades: you keep slicing at it until there's nothing left!

I'm a native Brit and whilst I agree our national lack of care about freedom is concerning I think it's slightly more nuanced than that.

My view is that people here are far too trusting of those in authority, and in particular counter-terrorist police and security services personnel. The attitude seems to be "if they think they need this then they know best". The collective psyche seems to take more comfort in the moral character of the people given the powers than in the safeguards against misuse.

On the positive side, almost noone I know thinks that it's appropriate that local councils or the Food Standards Agency have these powers. Those parts of government are largely viewed as "nannying busybodies" and the "nannying" bits of government are mostly distrusted - there does remain a British sense of freedom.

What's worrying though is that people don't seem to believe that minor agencies actually have been given these powers. When I've had conversations with people about this the reaction is "you're just exaggerating to make a point" or "they won't really do that, you're just concocting a far-fetched scenario that's technically legal but wouldn't happen in practice".

> My view is that people here are far too trusting of those in authority, and in particular counter-terrorist police and security services personnel.

I always though "brainwashed by TV" was an exaggeration. But the more I discuss with people, the more I realize they think the police/hospital/army/court works like on TV.

E.G: they expect that if there is a murder, an NCIS like team with try to find the murderer, or if they get strange like disease, some Dr House will be assigned to find the solution, or that judge are impartial and mayors are competent to deal with the solutions their city require. The reality is that people are average human being with limited resources everywhere. They are lazy, have ego, have a small budget, are tired, have an agenda, have bosses and politics, etc.

"authority, and in particular counter-terrorist police and security services personnel" is no different.

Also a Brit and I share the view that people are too trusting of authority. I also tend toward a distrust of authority. However, to play devils advocate, I sometimes wonder if we are collectively too immature to not need some "nannying". It wasn't long ago that food standards were compromised[0]. We also have problems with fly-tipping and dog fouling, both require a certain level of "nannying" to deal with. I just wish we could deal with such things without resorting to authority.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal

> I sometimes wonder if we are collectively too immature to not need some "nannying"

The argument against government isn't that we have our shit together and don't need supervision, it's that the government doesn't have its shit together and is unfit to supervise, or that it will rapidly become unfit once a position of power is created and inevitably attracts those most interested in exploiting it.

Everything you've posted supports the latter argument: the Food Standards Agency wants in on the dragnet surveillance apparatus, which is not their job, while they can't even ensure basic traceability (as evidenced by your link), which is their job? Not only are they unfit to be a "nanny," they sound like outright crooks!

In the UK we have a low level of public sector corruption (or perceived corruption) [1] so I think populous has grown to trust the state to a degree.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

Another Brit here:

I'm not aware of anyone in my circle seeing such agencies as being "nannying". I'm of the opinion that the Food Standards Agency improves life for everyone in the UK. I would rather put up with a little bit of nannying if it means I don't get food poisoning from restaurants.

I used to be all for freedom of speech and anti-censorship, but these days I've seen too many friends and family fall for miss-information. My university-educated brother-in-law believes in all the "5G causes COVID-19" nonsense. He even sent me a video on YouTube from a "Top American Doctor". Sigh.

ps. I think the solution here is to teach more critical thinking in schools.

That 5G nonsense thing is very like what the news was saying when mobile phones were first starting to get popular, stuff like causes tumours, cancer etc; which didn't turn out to be much at all.

But as someone who has looked at a wide variety of stuff from mainstream to far from mainstream, all I can say is that you really can't trust much at all, especially if it involves human issues (societal, political, etc).

Also the people who push for censorship and end up running censorship systems are exactly who you wouldn't want to run them. Foxes guarding the hen house and all that.

Completely agree with teaching critical thinking in schools. Also teaching people self defence from con artists and other malicious people they may be dealing with in everyday life would be great, something that would make them more prepared to live in a world where these things are common.

> ps. I think the solution here is to teach more critical thinking in schools.

100% percent agreement. Specifically, as its own course. How this is not part of every democracy's required curriculum for at least 2 years (class in 5-8 grade range + class in 9-12 grade range) is mind-boggling.

Don't give me crap about "there's no objective critical thinking" or "such a class would be impossible."

Even a basic survey of logical fallacies, rhetoric, and source suspicion would be beneficial to society as a whole!

> I'm not aware of anyone in my circle seeing such agencies as being "nannying". I'm of the opinion that the Food Standards Agency improves life for everyone in the UK. I would rather put up with a little bit of nannying if it means I don't get food poisoning from restaurants.

Is food poisoning from restaurants currently a problem for you? How will mass surveillance help?

> I used to be all for freedom of speech and anti-censorship, but these days I've seen too many friends and family fall for miss-information. My university-educated brother-in-law believes in all the "5G causes COVID-19" nonsense. He even sent me a video on YouTube from a "Top American Doctor". Sigh.

What are you suggesting the state should do to/for your friends and family who’s opinions you dislike?

Do their views mean that they are undeserving of human rights?

> Is food poisoning from restaurants currently a problem for you? How will mass surveillance help?

Yes it is - if health & safety and food quality are not set to a high standard (this applies to everyone BTW). Organized criminals will break all sorts of rules to make a quick buck - including selling horse meat as beef. How do you suggest the Food Standards Agency tackle this problem in the absence of a functional police force?

> What are you suggesting the state should do to/for your friends and family who’s opinions you dislike?

> Do their views mean that they are undeserving of human rights?

I have little patients for people who ignore basic scientific facts and believe the utter nonsense of so-called conspiracy theorists. It's their choice to ignore reality, and bring it on themselves to loose human rights.

I distinctly recall cases decades ago (but after the passage of RIPA 2000) of councils trying to use investigatory powers on things like, (I think I'm remembering this right) parents suspected of applying for schools outside their catchment area by lying about where they live. The hard examples of incredibly petty abuse by local councils, which actually happened, are out there if you want to go looking for them.
Yes. Some councils paid private investigators to follow and photograph families to try to "prove" that they weren't really living in the catchment areas for certain schools but had just rented properties as a postbox address. So not electronic surveillance as such but powers that they were indeed using under RIPA 2000.

I've tried pointing that out to people in the past (when the post Snowden legislation was being scrutinized by Parliament to try to encourage people to write to their MPs about it) and the reaction tended to be "see, they got caught and hardly any of them were doing it anyway so it proves that the system works". It's depressing.

I share your pain, having similar background.

It is probably not technical means, they always existed, the telephones could be listened to, and letters could be always opened.

Forgetting the history and not learning from it. The West has lived in more or less peaceful democracy since WW2, two full generations have changed, and the memory has faded. We, easterners are still the generation which grew up in totalitarian regimes, we do still remember it.

On the other hand, Poland and Ukraine are currently going down the path of forming a totalitarian regime, so I'm not sure if this holds as much in practise.
Can you elaborate regarding "totalitarian regime" in Ukraine? I don't like our current president and didn't vote for him, but I don't see anything totalitarian about him.
Mostly blocking the EU from doing anything about Poland, which is deep in there, and heading there itself (and Poland blocking the EU from doing anything about that).

It's not as bad as poland yet but it's getting there, slowly.

Sorry but it is very hard to understand anything in your comment. Ukraine is blocking EU from doing something about Poland? How? Ukraine is not in EU and can't block anything. Also, it seems you are not willing to expand on "getting there"...
Does Poland implement surveillance of their citizens in any excessive way? Just asking, as I do not know. The fact that the government is right-wing alone does not automatically mean it is going down the path of totalitarianism.
I'd say Poland is currently more at the fairly advanced stage of legal decomposition. The ruling group seized control over judiciary (the Constitutional Tribunal, controlling judges to the large extent). In the present crisis the legal foundations for everything that happens are very loose, with new ordinances interpreted ad hoc with the police's discretion or Prime Minister's Power Point presentations. The there's the controversy around organizing elections in May. The enduring legitimization of power can erode even further.

I would not call that totalitarianism, more like moving fast and breaking things, with no clear knowledge where they're going. The government is trying to avoid visibly mistreating anyone (aside from lots of verbal abuse on state media), they just want to do whatever they want. As to the longer term effects of such tendencies, I leave it to the reader's judgment.

As to surveillance, it was dug up by NGOs that provincial government offices are collecting cell network localization data on quarantined people. Apparently the emergency statute lets them do it even for everyone in an "anonymized" fashion.

Poland prevents the opposition from being able to take part in the government and pursues minority groups (political or otherwise), a totalitarian government doesn't require surveillance but I do recall from some newsreport some time ago that they approved quite wide ranging powers to the police.
> prevents the opposition from being able to take part in the government

This is definitely not specific to Poland, and unfortunately very typical across entire political spectrum and countries. I cannot quickly recall any European country where opposition is given meaningful part in government.

> totalitarian government doesn't require surveillance

I might disagree with you on this. That is what actually is very much required.

As said, if you take away dislike for left or right and look from politically neutral point of view, you can see that power corrupts politicians regardless of their affiliations.

People like you, who care about freedom and privacy, exist. I am also from behind the Iron Curtain, albeit I was born some years after it has fallen - fortunately, but the experience was ingrained in my parents. IMHO the problem is that people like us are distributed around the world, which puts us in a minority anywhere; we need to group up and watch each other's backs.
>We expected letters from abroad to be opened and read, we expected telephone calls to be listened to and so on.

Just checking that you know "communications data" in RIPA excludes the content of the message, and it refers only to the meta data?

Metadata is as telling as data.
Yes, absolutely, I agree.

That's why I find the article so frustrating.

"Here's a list of all the organisations that can get a warrant to get your metadata" would be a good, interesting story and we (us in the UK) need to have that discussion and hold politicians to account.

That job - holding MPs to account - is made harder by stories like this, because people write letters saying "stop reading my emails" and they get a reply saying "we never were reading your emails".

They don't care because they don't truly know the depth of the implications.
Waaaayback I saw an Ad in an Motorist-Magazine saying. 'a Thousand Miles can be like a hundred' OT...but...best ^^
A celebrated example was the use of the freshly-minted "Prevention of Terrorism Act" to stop an old man heckling the Foreign Secretary:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1499466/Heckler-82-w...

Notably in that case the police yet again reflexively denied actually using the power:

"At first Sussex police denied that Mr Wolfgang had been detained or searched but a spokesman later admitted that he had been issued with a section 44 stop and search form under the Terrorism Act."

which rather suggests that they used as a convenient way to stop the government being embarrassed, as opposed to its proper use of frustrating serious crime (if they really thought he was a terrorist he'd have been processed with more diligence).

This is exactly why the position to adopt w.r.t. government spying powers is that _it should not have any_. Yes, even if that makes it easier for theoretical terrorists or pedophiles or what-not. That threat is far lower than the certainty of oppressive use of this powers by government.