<story><title>Politicians call for UK security services to be given greater monitoring powers</title><url>http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22891845</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>einhverfr</author><text>I also suspect that the timing works against this bill.  It takes brashness (and not much sense) to propose this bill at this time.&lt;p&gt;Yes, in the middle of a major international scandal, let&amp;#x27;s imitate the bad guys.  That&amp;#x27;s a great idea....</text></item><item><author>anon1385</author><text>This piece is by Allegra Stratton, somebody with well known ties to the Conservative party. She is giving this letter more weight than it is worth (none of those opposition MPs are part of the shadow cabinet, and their positions on this were already known as far as I remember) to try and put pressure on the Lib Dems to cave on this issue. Not that I believe Labour is going to fight this, just that this letter doesn&amp;#x27;t represent any change or &amp;quot;renewed pressure&amp;quot;. John Reid, another Labour former Home Secretary, was already making a disgusting spectacle of himself all over the news in the days after Lee Rigby was murdered saying it showed the need for more government surveillance.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, when Jack Straw comes out in support of some new Home Office policy, you have to put that into context. He should be facing public trial over deporting people to be tortured and lying about it[1][2], and the current government aimed to prevent that with their expansion of secret courts (part of the Justice and Security Act)[3], so he owes them big time.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Jack_Straw#Rendition_and_torture_allegations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Jack_Straw#Rendition_and_tortu...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;apr&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;abdel-hakim-belhaj-jack-straw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;apr&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;abdel-hakim-b...&lt;/a&gt;
[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&amp;#x2F;law&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;secret-courts-the-essential-guide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&amp;#x2F;law&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;secret-courts-the-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>anon1385</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s hard to say what will happen. Milliband will whip his MPs to vote in favour of it, so it can pass without Lib Dem support. That would risk collapsing the coalition though. Fixed terms mean that the Tories would probably limp on as a minority government till 2015, but without much ability to get anything through (and they have little chance of getting reelected in 2015)  so they would have to be really committed to this issue to do that.&lt;p&gt;Lib Dems know they are going to get a hammering in 2015 and they need to start differentiating themselves from the Tories to have any hope at all, but it seems too soon for that at the moment. Thus-far they have proven incapable of taking a stand on anything of significance. Sadly polling probably indicates that this isn&amp;#x27;t something the public care enough about to make it worth them bringing down the government over, so I can easily see them rolling over in exchange for a few more years sucking on the teat of power. Or perhaps the most cowardly thing of all: making it a free-vote so that enough Lib Dem MPs will vote for it while Lib Dem HQ can claim to oppose it without any risk to the coalition.&lt;p&gt;It may be decided by UKIP and backbench Tories. If they are against it I can&amp;#x27;t see Cameron pushing it. Unfortunately a lot of the Tory backbench rebels are also staunch Atlanticists and heavily involved in the defence&amp;#x2F;security industry (think Liam Fox).&lt;p&gt;Whatever happens this will be on the books by ~2016 unless there is a significant public backlash.</text></comment>
<story><title>Politicians call for UK security services to be given greater monitoring powers</title><url>http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22891845</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>einhverfr</author><text>I also suspect that the timing works against this bill.  It takes brashness (and not much sense) to propose this bill at this time.&lt;p&gt;Yes, in the middle of a major international scandal, let&amp;#x27;s imitate the bad guys.  That&amp;#x27;s a great idea....</text></item><item><author>anon1385</author><text>This piece is by Allegra Stratton, somebody with well known ties to the Conservative party. She is giving this letter more weight than it is worth (none of those opposition MPs are part of the shadow cabinet, and their positions on this were already known as far as I remember) to try and put pressure on the Lib Dems to cave on this issue. Not that I believe Labour is going to fight this, just that this letter doesn&amp;#x27;t represent any change or &amp;quot;renewed pressure&amp;quot;. John Reid, another Labour former Home Secretary, was already making a disgusting spectacle of himself all over the news in the days after Lee Rigby was murdered saying it showed the need for more government surveillance.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, when Jack Straw comes out in support of some new Home Office policy, you have to put that into context. He should be facing public trial over deporting people to be tortured and lying about it[1][2], and the current government aimed to prevent that with their expansion of secret courts (part of the Justice and Security Act)[3], so he owes them big time.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Jack_Straw#Rendition_and_torture_allegations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Jack_Straw#Rendition_and_tortu...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;apr&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;abdel-hakim-belhaj-jack-straw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;apr&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;abdel-hakim-b...&lt;/a&gt;
[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&amp;#x2F;law&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;secret-courts-the-essential-guide&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.guardian.co.uk&amp;#x2F;law&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;secret-courts-the-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>7952</author><text>Most &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; people have probably been bored stupid by geeks getting upset over this issue in the last week.  It is possible to follow a story passively in the background, and come to a conclusion about it based on faith rather than objective reasoning.  However, bad things get; a lot of people will always believe that &amp;quot;the war will be over by, Christmas&amp;quot; because it is easier to just have faith and ignore the nerds.&lt;p&gt;There is a problem in how hackers&amp;#x2F;geeks&amp;#x2F;techies portray themselves.  You know that this kind of monitoring is bad because if you had the data you could do bad things (but you wouldn&amp;#x27;t because of ethics). But every app still expects people to hand over the same data and to trust the developer.  Expecting people to know which geeks they can trust and which are creepy is a big ask.</text></comment>