Former UK Bureaucrat Whines About People Happily Looking At Mobile Phones Rather Than Fearfully Spying On Everyone Else

from the wtf? dept

Tue, Jan 5th 2016 11:41am — Mike Masnick

Yes, lots of people whine about the fact that so many people out in public these days seem to have their heads down in their mobile phones, but as we've pointed out before, things aren't necessarily so different than in the past:

However, Pauline Neville-Jones, the former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee in the UK, has taken this form of anti-smartphone luddism to new and even more ridiculous levels, claiming that all these people looking at their mobile phones or listening to music/podcasts in public are a public nuisance, because they're not watching out for terrorists. Really.

“I think being alert is very important. I am alarmed by the number of people I see wandering along the street entirely engaged in their mobile telephones and with their ears plugged into music and they are not aware of their surroundings. You need to be aware of your surroundings,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “You do have to take some personal responsibility.”

In short: you lowly citizens, do not enjoy your life, but live in fear and report on any suspicious looking neighbors. I mean, while there have been terrorist attacks in the UK, it's not as if they're a regular occurrence. And living life in fear is hardly a productive way to live in a modern society.

However, Neville-Jones is pretty sure that living in fear is the best possible idea. Because she also encouraged the UK government to issue terrorist warnings more frequently, even if the evidence wasn't very strong:

She said the authorities had to take any intelligence seriously: “If you have got a piece of information, it may be difficult for you to assess it, you may not be comfortable about having a broader picture – part of the problem with intelligence is it can be fragmentary – but it’s a very bold government or policeman who chooses not to take precautions in such circumstances.

“I think the population on the whole would prefer them to be cautious and occasionally have closed something that it turned out wasn’t necessary – but how do we know – rather than take the risk of exposing people to dangers on which they have information, even if it’s not complete and on which they can’t necessarily totally rely.”

Of course, when you live in a world where bogus "terrorist threat" warnings come out all too often, it does the exact opposite of what Neville-Jones actually appears to want. That is, it makes people no longer trust the system at all, and become cynical about it. Wouldn't it be a lot smarter to explain to people that the real risk of dying in a terrorist attack is basically nil?

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Filed Under: fear, fearmongering, mobile phones, pauline neville-jones, terror, terrorism, uk

37 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2016 @ 11:43am

Wait, isn't terrorism her responsibility?
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Richard (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 12:07pm

The boy who cried wolf
The most worrying thing to me is that a senior intelligence agency person has not been taught the story of the boy who cried wolf.
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- Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2016 @ 12:18pm
  
  Re: The boy who cried wolf
  Well, she is from the UK and Aesop was a Greek, which is European. When was the last time someone from the UK gave credence to someone from the EU?
  
  Besides, "Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE." who would listen to history, it never repeats, AND he was only a slave, how smart could they be?
  
  /s
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- Seegras (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 1:00am
  
  Re: The boy who cried wolf
  A false alarm is _also_ a failure of a security system.
  
  And, technically, mass-surveillance is also a security failure.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2016 @ 12:14pm

Yeah.. paranoid people already cause enough problems.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2016 @ 12:20pm

Be calm
and carry on...

or not.
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- Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2016 @ 12:23pm
  
  Re: Be calm
  ... of course I think of something a bit more clever than 'or not' just after i hit submit... d'oh.
  
  "Keep alert and quite alarmed"
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wereisjessicahyde (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 12:41pm

"I mean, while there have been terrorist attacks in the UK.."

Bit of an understatement Mike.
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- tqk (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 5:09pm
  
  Re:
  
  "I mean, while there have been terrorist attacks in the UK.."
  
  Bit of an understatement Mike.
  
  Are you sure about that? Take a look at this.
  
  From 2000 - 2010, there's about twelve incidents, about half of which were "Real IRA", and most were in or around London. 2010 - present, there's three. Assuming the IRA's pretty much pacified, that leaves Islamists these days. If you're not in London, Glasgow, or Birmingham, you're never going to see any and even there you're not going to see many.
  
  It's that last bit there that gets me. Whole countries are made to shake in their boots about terror attacks while 99.9999...% of the population will never be affected by them in any way except by over-reacting to terror attacks.
  
  Yes, Lockerbie was sad and infuriating, blowing up Thatcher's hotel was scary (though they missed her), the London Tube bombings were frightening, and I weep for the poor soldier hacked to death on the street. However, the Blitz in WW2 was far more worth the attention. Britain's hardly on fire these days, especially if you're nowhere near London.
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  - Eldakka (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 9:59pm
    
    Re: Re:
    What about the 24 incidents in the '90s?
    Or the 12 incidents in the '80s?
    Or the 19 in the 70's?
    
    There might actually be people still around who lived in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Silly thought I know as the 70's were sooo long ago.
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    - Seegras (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 1:03am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Right, every _year_ in the seventies, there have been as many deaths from terrorism as in the whole last 15 years.
      
      So compared to those times, the terrorist threat has gone down by 90%. Still, some yokels think we should have more and more "anti-terrorist" laws.
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  - PaulT (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 2:15am
    
    Re: Re:
    I was born in the 70s, in Guildford where one of the infamous IRA pub bombings took place. I grew up in a town not far away from Birmingham, where another of the IRA pub bombings happened. I currently live in country that's had its own problems with terrorism (ETA) and within sight of a Muslim country from my local beach. I regularly visit cities such as London, Madrid and New York, and often find myself walking close to where terrorist attacks have occurred in those cities, and obviously involves a lot of time flying.
    
    The only thing about all that that's ever scared me about all thatis the reaction by authorities that left innocent men rotting in jail after the 2 pub bombings. Simply because they decided to pick up the nearest convenient Irishmen rather than finding the real culprits, and thus 10 men spent many years behind bars for a crime they did not commit, at least one of them not living to see his exoneration.
    
    That's truly terrifying. Not the work of killers, the work of those who supposedly protect us.
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Lisboeta, 5 Jan 2016 @ 12:44pm

Why are the security bods so obsessively concerned with potential/imagined terrorist threats? It's not as though they're very good at picking up on actual terrorists. And there are many statistically more significant hazards both in the home and on the roads!
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sehlat (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 1:12pm

I feel sorry for her.
She'll be so busy looking around for terrorists that she won't notice the edge of the platform before falling in front of the train.
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- Ninja (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 2:49am
  
  Re: I feel sorry for her.
  I'd go further. She will be so busy looking for terrorists that she will forget to live her own life in a pleasant way. But hey, what's an entire life trashed because of irrational fear in face of 'greater security'?
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Digitari, 5 Jan 2016 @ 2:05pm

control
if you are not constantly terrified how can we control you???
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2016 @ 2:32pm

Because she also encouraged the UK government to issue terrorist warnings more frequently, even if the evidence wasn't very strong.
If you can't find any needles, you might as well start warning people about the danger posed by haystacks. And man-eating triffids. Can't forget the triffids.
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- Digitari, 5 Jan 2016 @ 4:11pm
  
  Re: but....
  triffids are Green and "going Green" is so IN!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2016 @ 9:48pm
    
    Re: Re: but....
    I think they're even gonna show up in the next Avengers movie. Then again, so are Art Garfunkel, the Daleks, sentient waffles, a complete set of Pogs, a fully-functional Analytic Engine built from original designs, a 100ft. long orthopedic shoe insert, a damp Duraflame log, everyone from TechDirt, me, you (check your spam folder if you missed the email), ...
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btr1701 (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 4:33pm

Obliviousness
Spying aside, I will support the notion that people need to get their heads out of those damn phones and look where they're going.

Walking to lunch today, I was run into twice by idiots who were too busy texting to look where they were walking and one moron nearly walked into an intersection against the light and barely avoided being turned into road pizza, again had his face buried in his screen instead of eyes up, looking where he was going.
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- tqk (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 5:23pm
  
  Re: Obliviousness
  My favorites are the morons with earbuds who walk around train crossing barriers. I can't think of a quicker or more effective way to just get it all over with. It's evolution in action. Give 'em a Darwin award and forget 'em. The silliest part of it is the engineers suffering PTSD over having killed the idiots. They didn't! The idiots killed the idiots, not the train. The train is just the weapon they used in unintentionally suiciding themselves.
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- That One Guy (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 11:08pm
  
  Re: Obliviousness
  As TQK noted, that's what the Darwin Awards are for, to 'reward' those too stupid to live with their 5-minutes of fame.
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- Ninja (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 2:51am
  
  Re: Obliviousness
  With that I agree. I have no issues with people with their heads buried into their smartphones while staying still out of the way but I wholeheartedly agree with you.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2016 @ 6:09pm

Ask New York
There's an easy fix. The UK should get New York's 'report a terrorist' app. Then mobile users can continue staring at their phones and intelligence can continue getting a flood of data.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151127/10202432924/ny-governor-announces-app-version-states -see-something-say-something-program.shtml

Problem solved and a win for both parties!
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tracyanne, 5 Jan 2016 @ 9:37pm

I sometimes wonder
If perhaps the paranoia of our governments isn't going to bring a bout an actual war, in rather similar circumstances to the 1914 - 18 War to end all Wars. But that would be history repeating wouldn't it.
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That One Guy (profile), 5 Jan 2016 @ 11:14pm

"How are we supposed to scare you into giving up your rights if you're not afraid?!"
Oh those poor, poor spooks/terrorist sympathizers... if they can't convince people to continue to jump at every shadow, if they can't continue to do the terrorists' work for them by ensuring that the population is kept in a constant state of paranoia and fear, however will they survive?

They need people to be afraid if they're to strip them of their rights in the name of 'safety', but if people stubbornly refuse to be terrorized, that's slightly more difficult to do, so please, for the sake of the spooks, be afraid, be very afraid.
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Seegras (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 1:17am

Advance warning
They have this advance warning system already.

They do a "terrorist attack exercise" every time.
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Ninja (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 2:55am

“I think the population on the whole would prefer them to be cautious and occasionally have closed something that it turned out wasn’t necessary – but how do we know – rather than take the risk of exposing people to dangers on which they have information, even if it’s not complete and on which they can’t necessarily totally rely.”

You THINK? Have you ASKED the citizenry if they like all this moronic theater? I'd rather risk one or two attacks but retain my freedom and tranquility. And if you morons from the Govt would stop feeding terrorism it would be quite better, no?
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- tqk (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 10:26am
  
  Re:
  And if you morons from the Govt would stop feeding terrorism it would be quite better, no?
  
  Most terrorist attacks in Britain happen in or around London. Where's Parliament? London. I'd say they're suffering a bad case of confirmation bias. Perhaps if they took Parliament on the road, they might learn that things are actually a lot more peaceful than they assume it is. At the least, it'd force attackers to spread themselves around which would force them into the open instead of being able to hide within crowds in London.
  
  I'm generally not a big fan of Britain, but even I expect they're capable of better than this. Their current response to the terrorist threats makes a mockery of their past history. This's cowardly paranoia at best.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2016 @ 3:13am

and yet if people focused on him he would complain about them violating his right to privacy
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- Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2016 @ 3:18am
  
  Re:
  a correction meant she, it's late and I misread it.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2016 @ 5:46am

The funny thing is there is legitimate concern with
all the nodders and their digital heroin. There are some practical problems created by this situation. Terrorism, unless your referring to the involuntary reduction to a surveillance state, isn't really one of them.
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Anomynuos Crowad, 6 Jan 2016 @ 10:35am

huh?
You need to be aware of your surroundings

That's actually pretty good advice. I didn't see anything mentioned there about "terrorism". Not paying attention to your surroundings leads to things like walking in front of a bus, or holding up traffic on a green light.
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Indy, 6 Jan 2016 @ 12:42pm

Preferences
How does it benefit me or my life to consciously stare at people doing mostly nothing day in and day out, versus communicating with my friends/family/strangers on my schedule and time?

I don't spend every waking moment on my phone or on a computer, but it's unrealistic for me to not tire of "keeping an eye out" on the general public, which, by most accounts, does nothing to raise my spidey senses of fear or suspicion.

Wouldn't this all make more sense to educate the future masses and generations to be peaceful and share ideas and be critical thinkers, than have everyone spy on everyone forevermore? I mean, I'm kind've a hippy and all, but spending money now to educate and feed areas of unrest with an American Flag wrapped around each bundle, seems a better strategy overall, than just continually killing insurgents and areas of unrest. Yes there will be mass killings for a while, but for the long-term impacts, this seems like a better way to go.

It's not profitable for many world governments, so I get why we don't really do it.
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Rekrul, 6 Jan 2016 @ 3:33pm

Of course if most people are looking at their phones and you're looking around at other people, that would constitute suspicious behavior, since you're acting abnormally.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2016 @ 5:44pm

If you do not see something,
say something anyway.
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Steve (profile), 6 Jan 2016 @ 7:00pm

All those citizens are probably on line reading about the latest bombing of other countries or about how their own Government is spying on them. The rest are trying to work out their VPN.
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