UK Crime Agency Boss: 'Yes, The Public Must Give Up Its Liberty If It Wants Security'
from the deserve-neither dept
Last week, the UK Home Secretary pitched the current UK government's plan to ramp up anti-terror laws to further stamp out privacy and free speech rights in the UK. This week, Keith Bristow, director general of the National Crime Agency, doubled down by arguing that he needs to teach the public that of course they need to give up liberty if they want security. He argues that "public consent" is necessary, but that legislation is "public consent" and thus he needs to help convince the public (or, really, Parliament) to cough up some liberty.He said: “If we seek to operate outside of what the public consent to, that, for me, by definition, is not policing by consent … the consent is expressed through legislation.”And while the famed Ben Franklin quote on "safety" v. "liberty" is mostly used out of context, that doesn't lessen the importance of the premise behind it. Giving up liberty for the sake of presumed (without evidence) security is a very dangerous game, often used by those who just wish for more control and power, not any actual concerns with safety and security.
He added that it was necessary to win “the public consent to losing some freedoms in return for greater safety and security”.
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Filed Under: anti-terror, keith bristow, liberty, national crime agency, privacy, security, surveillance, uk
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"I'm ok with the current small risks, there's no need for further erosion of my rights. In fact I wouldn't mind a little less safety."
And seriously, even if they ramp up their efforts they CANNOT provide the perfect safety they are promising. So it's essentially a "give up your rights for nothing" agreement.
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① In order to provide said security, the net has to be physically built in another manner than it is today.
② The amount of security that can be provided is inversely proportional to the area covered.
③ Who the hell asked for this security at expense of freedom?
④ As long as there is no meaningful oversight, it's just abuse; not protection.
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Re:
We vote in the people that literally state "Doing Something is better than nothing" even when that something definitely looks worse than doing nothing!
Did you help to change your political diaper(politician) last election cycle? If you didn't then you need to lay in the bed you helped make!
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Sincerely regarded,
James Comey
PS: Please forgive me, but the entrapment was too much like trying to take bathwater from a baby.
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2. for one thing, about half the eligible voters don't vote, so 'we' is not so many people... not to mention that eligible voters only constitute a portion of the population...
3. your premise ASSUMES there are REAL choices besides the two branches of the ONE Korporate Money Party; there are not: we get korporate flack A, or korporate flack B; there is essentially ZERO choice for a NON-korporate flack, PERIOD...
4. which leads to: the current election system is BROKEN and CORRUPTED on many levels; you have a snowball's chance in hell of fixing a broken system by using a broken system...
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If I had to choose
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Re: Pick two.
You mean I get get Liberty and Security at the same time, if only I give up Equality?
Please do explain!
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Re: Re: Pick two.
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Re: Re: Re: Pick two.
...for those rounded up.
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If the citizen is a danger towards the public, or has committed a crime towards the public, it is the role of the authorities to prove this in the positive, not the role of the citizen to prove the negative. Authorities must show why a citizen may be guilty. It is no good saying the citizen must show why he is NOT guilty.
And "everybody is suspect" is not an argument in itself unless it can be proven, which it cannot be.
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This implies that it might be OK to give up liberty for the sake of provable improvements in security, to which I say "Bullshit".
Even if you had documented evidence that I would be safer if I gave up some of my freedom, I'd still tell you to take a hike.
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The idea of having a society at all requires giving up some freedoms for the sake of security.
While I do not think it is worth giving up all of my privacy for any security from a terrorist attack, I can understand how some people can make an argument for it.
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This is really a question of where the balance should be. I think you and I are probably more alike than different in where we want the balance: tilted more toward liberty than security. However, I don't want it tilted 100% toward liberty. Tyranny lies down that road just as much as it lies down the road of 100% security.
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When it starts to move back, then my opinion will begin centering once more.
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- Benjamin Franklin
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Fixed that for Ben.
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For years British-occupied Northern Ireland was worse than a police state, it was literally a military zone, and the harder the government authorities cracked down, the more the resistance pushed back. Not unlike other former colonies. Apparently the Redcoats routinely seem to forget this lesson repeated many times over throughout history, that the chief cause of so-called "terrorism" is too little liberty, rather than too much.
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This isn't true either. Hasn't been for some time. Jamming through law that the public doesn't consent to has been going on for quite a while now.
If you mean corporations and special interest consent is expressed through legislation you would be much closer to what is now happening.
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Are you stopping companies from getting hacked into? - no
Are you stopping terror attacks? - no
Are you making individuals more safe online - no
This is already a shitty deal why would we want more of your "nothing" that your already not giving us.
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Re:
Do we reward shitty work with more responsibility?
No!
Why should it be different with law enforcement?
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Is this still going on?
;)
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Re: Is this still going on?
* not
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This is a never ending cycle
Meanwhile the real bad guys are using encrypted methods of communication and eluding all this craziness.
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Re: This is a never ending cycle
Government is the largest purveyor and abuser of circular logic paradigms!
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Re: Re: This is a never ending cycle
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The linked article on the Ben Franklin quote...
I have no doubt that most of the people who repeat that quote haven't got a clue where it came from. But Ferenstein's dumb thesis ("it's pretty clearly about money") is based on a complete twisting of the historical context to support a literal-minded gotcha piece. Benjamin Franklin was advancing a narrower point with regard to freedom, true. That doesn't make the wider principle invalid. And it's not.
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Is the threat really worse than from the IRA?
The one exception was internment. This was equivalent to what the USA uses Gitmo for. Lock people up indefinitely without a trial. On balance, was it effective? I am sure the authorities behind it would say so, but it also alienated many people.
However, even that assault on liberty can be easily distinguished from what is proposed today. Internment affected a few thousand people. What is proposed today is the loss of liberty by everyone in the UK.
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Re: Is the threat really worse than from the IRA?
Unlike the Americans in Gitmo, the Brits never officially sanctioned torture to "make prisoners talk" and living conditions of IRA prisoners were generally far better, almost P.O.W. like.
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Thinking compels me to reply to this man: go pound sand.
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Also, that attitude of theirs lost them colonies in the past.
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My response - you first.
Once you, and every other member of the government, alphabet agencies (or their UK equivalents) does this, then they can talk to us about us allowing them to do it.
But only if WE say it's okay.
If WE say no, and then they do it anyway, then WE the people who are THEIR bosses just fire them, preferably out of a cannon.
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Where does this all lead
My question is where does all this lead to? I don't want to live in a dictatorship.
Did the allies fight against this sort of control 70 odd years ago? Where did it all go wrong and our governments now see us as the enemy?
Perhaps this was the plan all along...
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Re: Where does this all lead
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If only it were true
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