<story><title>UK’s Investigatory Powers Act is set to expand</title><url>https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/23/uk_snoopers_charter_sequel/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>digikazi</author><text>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&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t really care - her 12 year old son even less so. In fact, I&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;t read your mail, they don&amp;#x27;t  snoop on your calls and sure as s&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;t they don&amp;#x27;t confiscate subversive magazines sent from abroad. It was like a fairy tale; in the West, they took your rights seriously.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Freedom and privacy are like a sausage comrades: you keep slicing at it until there&amp;#x27;s nothing left!</text></item><item><author>samizdis</author><text>&amp;gt; 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&amp;#x27; lives easier.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tomatocracy</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a native Brit and whilst I agree our national lack of care about freedom is concerning I think it&amp;#x27;s slightly more nuanced than that.&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;if they think they need this then they know best&amp;quot;. The collective psyche seems to take more comfort in the moral character of the people given the powers than in the safeguards against misuse.&lt;p&gt;On the positive side, almost noone I know thinks that it&amp;#x27;s appropriate that local councils or the Food Standards Agency have these powers. Those parts of government are largely viewed as &amp;quot;nannying busybodies&amp;quot; and the &amp;quot;nannying&amp;quot; bits of government are mostly distrusted - there does remain a British sense of freedom.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s worrying though is that people don&amp;#x27;t seem to believe that minor agencies actually have been given these powers. When I&amp;#x27;ve had conversations with people about this the reaction is &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re just exaggerating to make a point&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;they won&amp;#x27;t really do that, you&amp;#x27;re just concocting a far-fetched scenario that&amp;#x27;s technically legal but wouldn&amp;#x27;t happen in practice&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>UK’s Investigatory Powers Act is set to expand</title><url>https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/23/uk_snoopers_charter_sequel/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>digikazi</author><text>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&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t really care - her 12 year old son even less so. In fact, I&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;t read your mail, they don&amp;#x27;t  snoop on your calls and sure as s&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;t they don&amp;#x27;t confiscate subversive magazines sent from abroad. It was like a fairy tale; in the West, they took your rights seriously.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Freedom and privacy are like a sausage comrades: you keep slicing at it until there&amp;#x27;s nothing left!</text></item><item><author>samizdis</author><text>&amp;gt; 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&amp;#x27; lives easier.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; 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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TomMarius</author><text>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&amp;#x27;s backs.</text></comment>