Investigatory Powers Bill is law, giving Britain the 'most extreme spying powers ever

Investigatory Powers Bill officially passes into law, giving Britain the 'most extreme spying powers ever seen'

Britain’s intelligence services have officially been given the “most extreme spying powers ever seen”. The Investigatory Powers Act has now been given royal assent, meaning that those surveillance rules will pass into law.

The bill was officially unveiled a year ago and passed through the House of Lords earlier this month, but the act of being signed off means that those powers now go into effect.

It adds new surveillance powers including rules that force internet providers to keep completely records of every website that all of their customers visit.

Those will be available to a wide range of agencies, which includes the Department for Work and Pensions as well as the Food Standards Agency.

As well as those internet connection records, surveillance agencies will also be given new powers to force companies to help hack into phones, and to collect more information than ever before on anyone in Britain.

Read More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/investigatory-powers-bill-snoopers-charter-passed-royal-assent-spying-surveillance-a7445276.html

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Reply 1

markova21

Good. If it keeps us all safe then this is a positive thing. Whoever they are are more than welcome to search through my details. I've got nothing to hide.

Reply 2

1420787

Original post by markova21

Good. If it keeps us all safe then this is a positive thing. Whoever they are are more than welcome to search through my details. I've got nothing to hide.

We're all safe now? That was quick.

Reply 3

markova21

Original post by offhegoes

We're all safe now? That was quick.

You know perfectly well what I was implying. We would be far more at risk than we are now if the authorities did not do what they do on our behalf on a daily basis.

Reply 4

BibleMan

Original post by markova21

Good. If it keeps us all safe then this is a positive thing. Whoever they are are more than welcome to search through my details. I've got nothing to hide.

The government aint doing it protect us. There doing it to protect themselves.

Reply 5

Retired_Messiah

Some poor bugger will now have to sift through a year's worth of my porn since I've googled Islam stuff like a bajillion times and once decided to see if it was theoretically possible to use bananas to make an explosive.

Never mind any moral concerns, it's just horribly inefficient.

Reply 6

1420787

Original post by markova21

You know perfectly well what I was implying. We would be far more at risk than we are now if the authorities did not do what they do on our behalf on a daily basis.

We would be much more safe if we were all tagged from birth and monitored by GPS and microphone. Should we do that too?

Reply 7

RF_PineMarten

Original post by markova21

Good. If it keeps us all safe then this is a positive thing. Whoever they are are more than welcome to search through my details. I've got nothing to hide.

All this data has to be stored somewhere, and there's a big risk of data being hacked and becoming available to anyone. And once the government has these powers, there's a risk of "mission creep" and of powers being expanded even further. This law basically legalises some stuff intelligence agencies were already doing illegally - a few years down the line they will likely be overstepping these as well, and so on.

This "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is possibly one of the most irritating arguments I've ever come across and it needs to die right now.

Reply 8

markova21

Original post by BibleMan

The government aint doing it protect us. There doing it to protect themselves.

Goodness knows how many terrorist plots the UK authorities have foiled through intelligence. And if you truly believe the Government are solely concerned with protecting their own inner circle of Whitehall and Westminster and not in protecting the British public, which is the first and most important duty of ANY Government, to protect its own citizens [can't say for some other countries of course] then you really need to get out into the real world more often.

Reply 9

1420787

Original post by Retired_Messiah

I guess they could watch all your porn at double speed? And maybe set it to the Benny Hill theme tune for comical effect?

Reply 10

JamesN88

Original post by markova21

Good. If it keeps us all safe then this is a positive thing. Whoever they are are more than welcome to search through my details. I've got nothing to hide.

They're going too far though IMO. I mean wtf does the Fire Brigade need to access people's internet history for? There's also the general ineptitude of govt depts to consider with regards to keeping the data secure.

Reply 11

Retired_Messiah

Original post by markova21

Goodness knows how many terrorist plots the UK authorities have foiled through intelligence.

This kind of intelligence is going to be largely useless tho. If they ever get the wrong man they could spend hours trawling through a year's worth of internet history before deciding he's irrelevant.

It would also do an amazing job of letting authorities get the wrong end of the stick. "Oh bugger me he googled a verse in the Quran once, he must be the terrorist we think he is"

Original post by offhegoes

I guess they could watch all your porn at double speed? And maybe set it to the Benny Hill theme tune for comical effect?

Good god that's ingenious.

Reply 12

BibleMan

Original post by markova21

There wouldn't be any terrorists if they didn't let them in and bomb there countries.

Tell that to people living under Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao and Bloody Mary etc..

What if it ends in the hands of terrorists etc through hacking?

What if a tyrant comes to power and decides he wants to genocide the muslims, christians or jews?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 13

kkboyk

Original post by markova21

Good. If it keeps us all safe then this is a positive thing. Whoever they are are more than welcome to search through my details. I've got nothing to hide.

That's like saying you don't mind your freedom of speech to be taken away because you don't have anything to say.

Reply 14

markova21

Original post by JamesN88

I agree that the security of storing the data needs to be impenetrable. As for the Fire Brigade, I can only think that it is to see if there is a pattern among some people with regards to "How to start an incendiary device in a department store" or words to that effect. Different potential security risks that would be flagged up.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 15

fgn

Original post by markova21

Whoever they are are more than welcome to search through my details.

Even a Geoffrey Prime?

Reply 16

markova21

Original post by kkboyk

That's like saying you don't mind your freedom of speech to be taken away because you don't have anything to say.

No its not. It would be different if every Tom, Dick or Harry had access to it all, or general members of the public. But they won't. It will be specially trained people who [hopefully] will know exactly what they're looking for anyway and will be able to filter through all the mundane stuff we all do online. I don't have one bit of a problem with people looking at my bank statement or my fortnightly online Sainsbury's shop. Provided they had the correct authorisation to do so. There's no harm to it. We've all been monitored both in the street and online for years anyway. It's not like its suddenly a whole new thing we've never encountered before.

Reply 17

BibleMan

Original post by RF_PineMarten

The saying was probably made up by the government lol

Reply 18

username878267

Original post by markova21

Problem is it won't be impenetrable. Hackers are always one step ahead and technology is always improving.

Everything you search, everything you send, every call you make will now be recorded on a database.

Plenty of people who search things out of genuine interests could
now end up being suspects and wasting time