15 years of illegal surveilence.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/17/uk-security-agencies-unlawfully-collected-data-for-decade

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/uk-spying-surveillance-investigatory-powers-bill-tribunal-gchq-intelligence-agencies-a7366386.html

So, for 15 years GCHQ and other UK surveillance companies have been spying on all of us, collecting personal data with no oversight with some staff even using said databases to spy on their own friends and family.

We've been told over and over again since the release of documents by Edward Snowden that the UK's security services work within the law; obviously the don't, that they don't collect bulk data; they do, that said data is completely anonymous; it demonstrably isn't, exactly when are the British people going to start getting annoyed about this?

As for a government response, well, they just made it all legal, so now they can do whatever they like without fear of repercussions from the law, not that they showed any respect for the law before.

The problem is that the people who care about this stuff already expect it to be true, thus when the truth goes public they're not shocked, and don't suddenly feel a great surge of energy to fight against it.

I just dont understand why so many people are so happy to have governmwnt agents constantly snooping through every last detail about their lives? The answer that normally comes is something along the lines of 'bcuz terrorism' or 'bcoz paedo', a thouroughly unsuitable reason for the scale of what those supposed to protect us are doing.

The Labour parties insistence on abstaining the everything relating to this in parliament (despite their resolute condemnations)and the Tories policy, especially with May at the helm, of just letting security services do whatever they want means there is no one challenging these practices and standing up for the personal liberties of ordinary people.

If someone came to your house,rooted through all your things, read your bank statements, medical records and personal correspondance you'd be rightly pissed off, so why is it okay for the security services to do it whenever they like, just from the other end of a computer.

Or worst of all, "If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide". Freedom doesn't work that way people.

tbh if it stops Terry Terrorist from blowing up a primary school then i don't mind if they see what i bought in Tescos.

Or worst of all, "If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide". Freedom doesn't work that way people.

What if the government said you had to walk backwards everywhere to prevent terror attacks, would you still so blindly acceot what they tell you?

The problem is that the people who care about this stuff already expect it to be true, thus when the truth goes public they're not shocked, and don't suddenly feel a great surge of energy to fight against it.

I just dont understand why so many people are so happy to have governmwnt agents constantly snooping through every last detail about their lives?

Do you honestly believe this is the case though?

There's a big difference between generating all this information and actually looking through it all. If they're collecting this data then they're creating tens of thousands of terabytes of information every hour and there's absolutely no chance that someone is sat at a computer looking at it all.

It would take millions of people millions of years to look through the data collected in a single week.

GCHQ has, roughly, 7000 people working for it. The majority of whom won't be doing anything related to this data at all.

Having the data is one thing. Doing something with it is an entirely different game.

If they are collecting so much data they can't even hope to do anything useful with it, why bother in the first place?

If there is too much data to use, is it actually doing anything to stop or prevent terrorism?

Is it not just a catastrophic waste of public money and a pointless intrusion into everyone's personal lives for no gain?

I just dont understand why so many people are so happy to have governmwnt agents constantly snooping through every last detail about their lives? The answer that normally comes is something along the lines of 'bcuz terrorism' or 'bcoz paedo', a thouroughly unsuitable reason for the scale of what those supposed to protect us are doing.

The Labour parties insistence on abstaining the everything relating to this in parliament (despite their resolute condemnations)and the Tories policy, especially with May at the helm, of just letting security services do whatever they want means there is no one challenging these practices and standing up for the personal liberties of ordinary people.

If someone came to your house,rooted through all your things, read your bank statements, medical records and personal correspondance you'd be rightly pissed off, so why is it okay for the security services to do it whenever they like, just from the other end of a computer.

Those are the more valid questions, imo.


Though I would wager with the last one that merely gathering the information costs very little.

Just did a cursory look about, so wouldnt take theses figures as absolute, but from what I can tell the Single Inteligence Account (that funds all the security services) had a budget of £1.8billion for 14/15, £1.5billion of which went to GCHQ. As a percentage of the entire national budget that isnt vwry much, but as a portion of the SIA it's pretty huge, especially if, as we have suggested, what it does is completely useless.

Do you honestly believe this is the case though?

There's a big difference between generating all this information and actually looking through it all. If they're collecting this data then they're creating tens of thousands of terabytes of information every hour and there's absolutely no chance that someone is sat at a computer looking at it all.

It would take millions of people millions of years to look through the data collected in a single week.

GCHQ has, roughly, 7000 people working for it. The majority of whom won't be doing anything related to this data at all.

Having the data is one thing. Doing something with it is an entirely different game.

Why are they collecting so much data then? Surely this just makes the case that state surviellance on this scale isn't helpful to catch terrorists.Surely it would be much better to target the snooping on those people know to be a risk, rather than just spying on everyone.And I doubt it would be a person looking through it but probably some kind of software.

That's fine after the event, or once you have an idea of who might be inclined to do something, but how do you find out who that is?

Well for starters we could stop pretending terrorism has nothing to do with Islam.That rules out about 90% of the population of the UK.