Right or Wrong? Discuss.

Sie

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7021647.stm

Right or Wrong? Discuss.

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Darthn3ss

wrong.

royal

All I read is the title and it's wrong. Violation of privacy.

binarysoul

Wrong.

This is crude terrorism invading privacy!

Darthn3ss

hopefully canada never implements anythign like that... cause one day the US probably will so you know.. i'll be out.

Sie

Personally I can see the good and bad points of this, I want to go with the saying "If you have done nothing wrong why worry" but still feel its not completely right.

Im also wondering how much of this has been going on already without them telling us.....

Is the UK becoming a Big Brother Country where every move is watched and recorded?

binarysoul

Sie wrote:

Personally I can see the good and bad points of this, I want to go with the saying "If you have done nothing wrong why worry" but still feel its not completely right.

It's a matter of principle and values and not worrying about doing something wrong. For some privacy is a matter of values, and one may never lose his/her values. If you want to protect the public, don't do it at the expense of invading individual values! Public policies are always tough to make as a segment of the public will be upset no matter what. But the law to record every single conversation is plain stupid.

The British government will have tough time keeping up with technology, especailly with the emergence of encrypted and secure VoIP that will never be traced.

Oh, and wrong-doers know about the law too, so they will simply use other means to communicate their mischief

Dahhhhh all that investment by government goes in vain!

seuss_ssues

First thought:

I guess George Orwell was only off by a few decades.

networker050184

They are probably already doing it and just not telling us....... I'm sure they justify it as some sort of secret homeland defense thing.

KGhaleon

Hope they have some big servers to store all that.

networker050184

Hope they have some big servers to store all that.

I was thinking the same thing. All those people on cellphones.......

d4nmf

Wonder if they get to see all the picture messages people send / receive?!

Netstudent

Hell who cares? Do any of you have something to hide? Do you really think they care about anyone who is normal upstanding citizen? NO. They only care about people who have ties to terrorism and crime. You really think they are sitting around and listening to your conversations or reading your cell logs, of course not. I don't mind giving up a little bit of my privacy if it keeps another jihad extremist from blowing up another train,or building and killing hundreds of innocent people. Back in the day this kind of stuff didn't happen and you want to know why? Because back then people didn't mind giving up a little bit of privacy because they knew it was for the greater good. Back in the day people did what they had to do to get the job done.Back in the day people didn;t care if you had to rip some fingernails out to get some information. I feel like now people are so worried about their privacy and civil liberties, that they fail to see the intentions. Most people just see it as an invasion of privacy. Well stop thinking about yourself and think about the fact we're at war. Too many people just see it has a government conspiracy for control. I also feel like people have forgotten we are at war and people forget what it means to be at war. Then you have soldiers that are brought back and tried for murder because they were over there fighting for us and killing people. good grief. It's just terrible. We will never win the war on terrrorism because we will never do what needs to be done. What used to be called casualties of war is now called murder and your going to go to jail for fighting for your country. how stupid does that sound? There are to many civil liberty sissies. Everybody wants to stop terrosists, but nobody wants to trade off, to help the cause. You guys really think they govermenent get kicks out of listening to people's boring conversations?

Is is completely right? no

Are we at war? yes

Is it something that probably needs to be done to help protect us? yes

Thats my opinion.

networker050184

If they weren't listining to your calls or reading your transcripts how would they know if you were a terrorist or not? Trust me I'm not some liberal anti-war person I have been to Iraq multiple times, but we can not give up our civil liberties to stop these people. Don't you realize thats what they want??? If we break down and do these things then we are no better than them and have nothing left to fight for. I didn't go to Iraq to fight for the governments right to spy on me. I went there to defend freedom and liberty. We are fighting to defend what this nation was built on and that is freedom.

Netstudent

You have a point, but I just don't see logging cell phones as a complete loss of freedom and civil liberties. Also I'm sure the goverment has ways of finding people without sitting around and listening to each and every conversation. You have intelligence agencies and software that can do all of that. I dunno, like I said I just don't see how listening to flagged people's conversations is this huge breach in freedom. Now if you were talking on the phone and said the president was a big fat lying redneck, and the government came to your house and said hey you can't say that. Then thay would be a breach in freedom. If I make a call from my cell phone to pakistan, or bagdad, then by all means log away.

BeaverC32

I don't mind giving up a little bit of my privacy if it keeps another jihad extremist from blowing up another train,or building and killing hundreds of innocent people. Back in the day this kind of stuff didn't happen and you want to know why? Because back then people didn't mind giving up a little bit of privacy because they knew it was for the greater good. Back in the day people did what they had to do to get the job done.Back in the day people didn;t care if you had to rip some fingernails out to get some information.

Seems like you need a little history lesson. You really believe terrorism is new to the 20th/21st century? Not to mention there has been countless numbers of revolutions and uproars with citizens fighting the government to protect their rights and freedoms.

Netstudent

BeaverC32 wrote:

I don't mind giving up a little bit of my privacy if it keeps another jihad extremist from blowing up another train,or building and killing hundreds of innocent people. Back in the day this kind of stuff didn't happen and you want to know why? Because back then people didn't mind giving up a little bit of privacy because they knew it was for the greater good. Back in the day people did what they had to do to get the job done.Back in the day people didn;t care if you had to rip some fingernails out to get some information.

Seems like you need a little history lesson. You really believe terrorism is new to the 20th/21st century? Not to mention there has been countless numbers of revolutions and uproars with citizens fighting the government to protect their rights and freedoms.

You are right, but I still think that in times of war, sometimes things have to be bent a little bit.

networker050184

Some things may need to be bent, but those things that are bent can not be our freedom.

BeaverC32

The main concern here lies in the "slippery slope" idea, where if we give them an inch, they take a mile. Just do a google search on "patriot act violations" to read countless stories of how this act was misused.

JDMurray

Netstudent wrote:

You are right, but I still think that in times of war, sometimes things have to be bent a little bit.

The USA is not "at war" with anyone and hasn't been officially at war since World War II. Political administrations will often play the "We're at war!" card to justify extreme measures that are only acceptable in times of war, such as the suspension of civil liberties and charging people with treason.

Using the "I'm not doing anything wrong, I've got nothing to hide" argument is a lack of understanding that once civil liberties are removed are rarely restored. Never give away your freedoms for any reason--especially on the promises of a politician.

Ahriakin

Measures like this only work if you trust those who will control them. And the simple fact is most of us don't, whether in the States, the UK or wherever. Too many political and economic powers stand to benefit, there are more Cheneys and Haliburton's than there are Jack Bowers in the system

sprkymrk

@netstudent:

Let me allow one of America's forefathers, Benjamin Franklin, to answer you:

Benjamin Franklin wrote:

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

And one more by Dorothy Thompson:

Dorothy Thompson wrote:

When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.

Netstudent

JDMurray wrote:

Netstudent wrote:

You are right, but I still think that in times of war, sometimes things have to be bent a little bit.

The USA is not "at war" with anyone and hasn't been officially at war since World War II. Political administrations will often play the "We're at war!" card to justify extreme measures that are only acceptable in times of war, such as the suspension of civil liberties and charging people with treason.

Using the "I'm not doing anything wrong, I've got nothing to hide" argument is a lack of understanding that once civil liberties are removed are rarely restored. Never give away your freedoms for any reason--especially on the promises of a politician.

Point taken. These are all very good and valid arguments and I totally see where you guys are coming from. It just seems that a lot of times, we are moving backwards in the effort on terrorism because we are so busy trying to seek out people violating civil liberties or the patriot act.

Sie

If they are all logged then they need to be examed and searched through.

Now im pressuming they use software etc to search through for relevant phrases or word combinations etc.

Depends to what extent they search, This is a very basic example.

Joe Bloggs "That bombing in london was terrible"
Joe Terrorist " Lets bomb that terrible london"

(Dont quote me on this as i know its really not that simple!)

But my point is, if you say the wrong thing or the wrong string of words are they then going to monitor you and your calls and movements (as it says in the article they can pinpoint people to a few meters of their mobile phones)

At what point is it protection and at what point is it invasion of privacy?

Darthn3ss

skipped most of the thread, but replying to this:

don't mind giving up a little bit of my privacy if it keeps another jihad extremist from blowing up another train,or building and killing hundreds of innocent people

I agree with that and all, but what if they implement something like that, and then there is another terrorist strike? That'll just be another step to creating a police state.

Netstudent

Yes indeed it is a very complicated debate amongst us all. You will hear a million different opinions. But this whole discussion coudn;t have come at a better time. Just got to class and I am assigned to write a critical analysis on a subject that I disagree with to truly understand something you disagree with. Had no idea this assigment would arise, but what perfect timing. Now I have all of your perspectives to add to my analysis. Anyways thanks.

TechJunky

I didnt read the story... Just read the title.

It's not right... But I agree with it.

I record all my conversations via phone already anyhow. State law states here that only 1 party needs to know they are being recorded.

Also, I bet it would only takes 4 months before someone hacks the system and puts the info on the interweb. :P

KGhaleon

*starts attaching the word "bomb" to the end of all his text messages from now on*

Schluep

I had originally typed up a lengthy post regarding this topic and then realized it would be better to let men who were far more insightful than myself make the point. I know that not everyone on these boards is from the United States, but it seems like a majority are. Hopefully this will hit the point home better than a post us tech guys could think up. From the beginning of the second paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence which was created, signed, and ratified by our Continental Congress:

Declaration of Independence wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

If you want to see a blue-print of what we would not want to happen that has been happening more and more over these past years in terms of loss of freedom then read the entirety of the Declaration of Independence paying specific attention to each item in the list of grievances.

Read the "Bill of Rights" of our Constitution and you will see that nearly every one of those rights are already being violated to varying degrees.

Obviously we do need to sacrifice some rights for the security that a government provides. For example, we put ourselves under the authority of a legal system in order to maintain a civil society without lawlessness and anarchy. We have men and women who sacrificed and sacrifice their lives to establish and protect the rights that we do have. In my opinion there is nothing we can do to thank them enough for risking what so many are unwilling to risk on our behalf. Clearly if they are willing to sacrifice their right to life for our sake we shouldn't just be giving away what they fought so hard to create and protect over the past couple hundred years plus a few.

None of us want terrorists attacking us, our families, our friends, or other people that we have never met before. Some people recognize the danger of this threat more or less than others. Regardless of how much of a threat we ever face though, you do not want to add your own government to that list of enemies. Those who founded my Country believed that force was necessary to establish these rights. Many of them indicating verbally (recorded in transcripts from the Continental Congress) and in their own rights that the greatest concern they had was that with the passing of time the rights they fought so hard to establish for every citizen of this Country would be voluntarily surrendered. According to the final sentence of the Declaration of Independence, they "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." Not many people are willing to make such sacrifices today, and the large majority of those that signed the Declaration of Independence lost their lives and all of their wealth as a result.

TechJunky wrote:

I didnt read the story... Just read the title.

It's not right... But I agree with it.

I record all my conversations via phone already anyhow. State law states here that only 1 party needs to know they are being recorded.

Also, I bet it would only takes 4 months before someone hacks the system and puts the info on the interweb. :P

On a separate note be careful with this one during interstate and international communication. U.S. Federal Law requires one party to be aware that the communication is taking place. The state where I live, Pennsylvania, requires that both parties be aware unless you are recording a criminal act. Several other states have similar laws. Federal Law may apply in cases of interstate communication where you record a call to which you are a part of but that isn't certain. It is possible that a court could use the State law depending on the circumstance. For calls you plan to record it is probably best to advise all parties involved if either you do not know where they are located or know they are located somewhere that such laws exist.