Regulation of Investigatory Powers act

[David Johnson]

This act to its shame was brought in by the Labour government in 2000.
It's main purpose was to:

update the law on "telephone tapping" to clearly cover Internet communications and to ensure that tapping "private" networks was lawful.

set up a formal system for the serving of notices on telcos and ISPs to obtain "communications data".

set up a formal system for authorising "surveillance".

gives Law Enforcement the power to serve notices requiring that encrypted material be "put into an intelligible form"

Now when asked about who this act was aimed at, we got the same bollocks from the Labour government as Cleggie and co are doling out today i.e. no need to worry, it is purely aimed at criminal gangs, terrorists, paedophile networks etc etc so we can all sleep easier in our beds.

What Cleggie and Call Me Dave have not pointed out is:

1. THe powers in RIPA have been used incredibly extensively including a number of councils using its powers to check if families who have applied to highly rated schools, actually live in the catchment area. And in the case of Derby Council to get to the bottom (not literally) of dog fouling.

2. The data will be stored by Internet Service Providers. Now anyone who thinks that this data will not either knowingly or unknowingly, be handed over to third parties are living in cloud cuckoo land.

This bill needs to be resisted by all lawful means.

[Lizard]

Yes, I agree the chances of cross contamination, like somebody using your wireless network are too high, also your email address could be in someones address book, just because it was harvested and stored, your email address could be in some villian's address book because they have tried to mug you for something, unlike DNA it's not secure enough, also what's to stop anybody just buying a pay as you go dongle or sim card and paying cash....doesn't make sense, and is a total flip flop from what the coalition promised, Also a lot of criminal activity and terrorist activity is commited in internet cafe's.

[Essex Lad]

It is obvious that the desire to snoop on us, driven by supposed ?security? concerns is now entrenched in the establishment, and will happen.

But at the end of it, when we have a strong state and almost no safeguards, we will still have the knife crime. In Moscow, the Militia are everywhere, twirling their rubber truncheons and immune to criticism or accountability. If the authorities said you were guilty, you were guilty and that was that.

Iron fists and snooping don?t actually make people safe. They make the state safe, because it is the state that such methods are designed to serve. A genuine ?people?s police?, like our own before Roy Jenkins wrecked them in the 1960s, are present on the streets as individual, citizens in uniform with few powers, are governed by law, must answer to the courts and derive their authority from those they protect.

The sea they swim in is a general high level of morality and obligation, backed up by a death penalty for those who refuse to abide by the basic rule of respect for innocent life, which again was undone by Mr (later Lord) Jenkins and his cultural revolutionaries. They escaped the consequences of what they had wrought ? Lord Jenkins living out his years in a delightfully unspoiled village in the shadow of the Berkshire Downs, all but untouched by the new Britain he had helped to make.

[Flat_Eric]

But it's to PROTECT US FROM TERRORISM.

It's to MAKE OUR BORDERS SAFE.

it's to CATCH CRMINALS.

And IF WE HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE, WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR.

(I am of course being ironic).

- Eric

[jimslip]

Flat_Eric wrote:

> But it's to PROTECT US FROM TERRORISM.
>
> It's to MAKE OUR BORDERS SAFE.
>
> it's to CATCH CRMINALS.
>
> And IF WE HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE, WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR.
>
> (I am of course being ironic).
>
> - Eric
>
You forgot, "To protect us from paedos!".......Teresa May's "ace card" she used in the Sun today and will use again and again, although someone had pointed out that paedos and terrorists will be and are using proxy IP addresses and can avoid detection altogether!

[Peter]

Everyone should have a Truecrypt disk set up, even if you don't actually put anything on it, just to troll the authorities with if they ever come for you.

[David Johnson]

If Cleggie and the Lib Dems support this stuff, that will be the end of the Lib Dems.

They were the only main stream party to highlight some of the issues with the banking system's over-exposure to debt. And then when they sniff power in May 2010 they did a 180% about turn on the economy policies to throw their lot in with the Tories.

Cleggie fucked up completely the AV referendum in terms of timing etc.

They screwed the students senseless with an almost tripling of fees.

And now they are going back on their pledge on the surveillance society.

What is left for Cleggie to do other than appear on TV and blow his brains out? Or alternatively and more likely for him - join the Tory party?

[Flat_Eric]

David Johnson wrote:

> If Cleggie and the Lib Dems support this stuff, that will be
> the end of the Lib Dems.


I think they're fucked already. I can see them being utterly decimated in the local authority elections next month.

- Eric

[Lizard]

"What is left for Cleggie to do other than appear on TV and blow his brains out? Or alternatively and more likely for him - join the Tory party?"

He's already done that.

[jimslip]

David Johnson wrote:

> If Cleggie and the Lib Dems support this stuff, that will be
> the end of the Lib Dems.
>
> They were the only main stream party to highlight some of the
> issues with the banking system's over-exposure to debt. And
> then when they sniff power in May 2010 they did a 180% about
> turn on the economy policies to throw their lot in with the
> Tories.
>
> Cleggie fucked up completely the AV referendum in terms of
> timing etc.
>
> They screwed the students senseless with an almost tripling of
> fees.
>
> And now they are going back on their pledge on the surveillance
> society.
>
> What is left for Cleggie to do other than appear on TV and blow
> his brains out? Or alternatively and more likely for him -
> join the Tory party?

Yes you are right and it is very sad indeed. The problem is David, Cloggy's demise will NOT mean a resurgence of support for New Labour. It will just feed the hopeless apathy that millions of people have for, "The System" and next election we'll probably just end up with another Coalition, who knows?