<story><title>If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can&apos;t intercept</title><url>http://blog.mythic-beasts.com/2015/01/15/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-mythic-beasts-employee-after-david-cameron-bans-the-secure-encryption/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chao-</author><text>Who are the security services employed by? I certainly wouldn&amp;#x27;t call them private industry!&lt;p&gt;Did you mean to say it&amp;#x27;s not &lt;i&gt;elected&lt;/i&gt; government officials? Just curious, because I definitely consider a country&amp;#x27;s intelligence apparatus to be completely and wholly part of its &amp;quot;government&amp;quot;, and would be surprised to find someone who didn&amp;#x27;t.</text></item><item><author>tonyedgecombe</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not really the elected government, it&amp;#x27;s the security services asking for an expanded remit and being granted one by uncritical politicians and an apathetic media.</text></item><item><author>mike-cardwell</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s pretty clear that the UK government doesn&amp;#x27;t have the power to ban encryption. This is just a distraction so that we are happy to accept whatever &amp;quot;less bad&amp;quot; proposals they come up with to increase their surveillance powers. I can&amp;#x27;t help but feel that peoples dislike of Cameron is a pointless distraction too. This is not Cameron. This is government. We will still be having this same discussion in 50 years, unless some miracle technical advancement makes it moot.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Luc</author><text>&amp;#x27;The government&amp;#x27; refers to something different in the US than in (most of?) Europe.&lt;p&gt;My American friends were mightily amused and amazed when Belgium spent &amp;gt;500 days without government a couple of years ago, but of course they were interpreting the word in a much more encompassing way than it is done in Belgium. &amp;#x27;The goverment&amp;#x27; is really just a couple of dozen people (with perhaps a couple of dozen assistants each).</text></comment>
<story><title>If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can&apos;t intercept</title><url>http://blog.mythic-beasts.com/2015/01/15/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-mythic-beasts-employee-after-david-cameron-bans-the-secure-encryption/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chao-</author><text>Who are the security services employed by? I certainly wouldn&amp;#x27;t call them private industry!&lt;p&gt;Did you mean to say it&amp;#x27;s not &lt;i&gt;elected&lt;/i&gt; government officials? Just curious, because I definitely consider a country&amp;#x27;s intelligence apparatus to be completely and wholly part of its &amp;quot;government&amp;quot;, and would be surprised to find someone who didn&amp;#x27;t.</text></item><item><author>tonyedgecombe</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not really the elected government, it&amp;#x27;s the security services asking for an expanded remit and being granted one by uncritical politicians and an apathetic media.</text></item><item><author>mike-cardwell</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s pretty clear that the UK government doesn&amp;#x27;t have the power to ban encryption. This is just a distraction so that we are happy to accept whatever &amp;quot;less bad&amp;quot; proposals they come up with to increase their surveillance powers. I can&amp;#x27;t help but feel that peoples dislike of Cameron is a pointless distraction too. This is not Cameron. This is government. We will still be having this same discussion in 50 years, unless some miracle technical advancement makes it moot.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tonyedgecombe</author><text>I was thinking of government as the elected officials, the rest is the civil service and departments including the security services.&lt;p&gt;I was trying to say the security services will always press for more powers and it&amp;#x27;s the job of politicians to know when to resist those requests.</text></comment>