Sensing Public Support Waning, UK Fast Tracks Snooper's Charter

from the get-the-damn-thing-through-and-then-spy-on-everyone dept

Tue, Mar 1st 2016 3:24am — Mike Masnick

For some time now, we've been covering the UK's plan -- led by Home Secretary Theresa May -- to pass a new Snooper's Charter that would increase surveillance powers greatly in the UK. There's been a growing amount of criticism of the plan in the UK, so rather than respond to it, May has simply moved to fast track the bill, officially called the Investigatory Powers Bill. The bill will officially be "published" today on March 1, and then will likely be voted on before the end of April.

Of course, this seems like standard operating procedures these days. Two years ago, the UK government did the same thing with its data retention bill. It's almost as if the UK government would prefer cutting off debate on these issues, and just rushing through much greater surveillance powers for the government.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: investigatory powers bill, snooper's charter, theresa may, uk

22 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Capt ICE Enforcer, 1 Mar 2016 @ 4:03am

Time to Act
Well shit, I vote we give the government more stuff to look at. Everyone should start taking numerous pictures, and videos and attach them to every message we send. I am sure they will love the following items.

Pictures:

1) Dog poop
2) Any baby diaper
3) Private junk area
4) Sunsets
5) Used tires
6) Last nights dinner

Video:

1) 8 hours of toilet flushing
2) Paint drying
3) Meme of the Queen
4) 9 hour video of a paper saying watch this video. Remember to add a few random words at a super low volume. Then use air horn immediately following. That always makes them jump.

You get the idea, be creative. That way the more useless junk they have to sift thru the less likely they will get the stuff you really want private. Like photos of your woman.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 4:42am
  
  Re: Time to Act
  Better yet ...
  
  pictures of THEIR
  1) Dog's poop
  2) baby's diaper
  3) private junk area
  4) sunset from their home
  5) used tires
  6) last night dinner
  
  you get the idea.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Richard (profile), 1 Mar 2016 @ 7:38am
  
  Re: Time to Act
  Video:
  
  1) 8 hours of toilet flushing
  2) Paint drying
  3) Meme of the Queen
  
  I would like to protest here on behalf of paint drying.
  
  Paint drying can actually be quite interesting. I went to a seminar about it once. If you know how paint dries you can actually do microfabrication with it. Please leave paint drying off the list.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
MadAsASnake (profile), 1 Mar 2016 @ 4:45am

Not just the UK - we are seeing this all over the place since the Snowden revelations. All these governments that have been so busy telling us their spying is lawful are passing laws to make them so. Why would there be a debate? That would highlight years of government criminality.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
David, 1 Mar 2016 @ 5:05am

Unfair characterization
It's almost as if the UK government would prefer cutting off debate on these issues, and just rushing through much greater surveillance powers for the government.

That's like stating "it's almost as if the school teachers' association would prefer cutting off the proliferation of the headlice infestation".

What makes you think they wanted a debate in the first place? Don't ask, don't tell is the word.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 6:38am
  
  Re: Unfair characterization
  Well, the difference is that headlice are competent.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 5:28am

it's taking the place of the USA, so when things ease off there, the UK can fill the USA in with any new developments! i wonder if this would have been the case had the USA not been caught at what it was doing?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 5:44am

The more tyrannical governments do stuff like this the greater the chances they will be overthrown not less.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 5:53am
  
  Re:
  Also the chance that the replacement will be as bad or worse increases with the risk of open revolt.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- David, 1 Mar 2016 @ 6:37am
  
  Re:
  History is not on your side here. Take WWII: nobody actually minded Hitler entertaining death and labor camps, committing genocide, dismantling democracy, suppressing his people, persecuting ethnic and religious minorities. I mean, Stalin was on the side of the winners, and the British Empire had not presented a particularly endearing picture in India either.
  
  It took Hitler to formally declare and rage war against basically everybody and not mind international treaties at all to make people care.
  
  Take a look at how well the Prague Spring went.
  
  Saudi Arabia is considered a stable country because they export more oil than they export Osama bin Ladens. Not because of being non-tyrannical (when a woman walks the street without her male guardian, both may be in for a flogging. Homosexuals are executed. Dancing with shirts off in the street will lead to jail sentences above 10 years, and we are talking about males dancing with shirts off here).
  
  No, the main downfall of tyrannies seems to be when they run out of steam or when they declare war. Other than that, they tend to stick around pretty solidly.
  
  People are just wired to obey. And nobody minds a slippery slope.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 12:17pm
    
    Re: Re:
    "nobody actually minded Hitler entertaining death and labor camps"
    
    "It took Hitler to formally declare and rage war"
    
    I assume that you need to read some history.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Shadow Firebird, 1 Mar 2016 @ 12:47pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Not entirely - we *did* have to win a war to stop him doing those things, didn't we?
      
      People are (regretfully) complacent, ignorant, stupid or all three.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 2 Mar 2016 @ 11:24am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Maybe the leaders of IBM and Ford were happy to get on board, but most of the populations across the planet were unaware of what was transpiring - and had they known about it they would certainly not be happy, much less condoning.
        
        In addition, several nations were actively opposing Germany well before Germany "declared war".
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 2:37pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      They were happy to keep appeasing Hitler, until he reached too far and too fast.
      
      If he had waited a while before demanding poland odds, are they would have appeased him in that.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 6:25am

Hell Yeah! I want to see every country adopt strict surveillance and snooping laws and then sit back and watch as civil chaos erupts into a full blown riot throughout the entire globe.

In my opinion, they aren't doing this to stop terrorists, they are doing this to prevent civilians from rising up and challenging the government and it's going to backfire in a major way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- NotThatACThe OtherOne, 1 Mar 2016 @ 10:42am
  
  Re:
  You are correct in the first instance and an optimist in the second.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 6:58am

Public Support??
They had public support? When. Where. Were those supporters hired shills? Were they people who could lose their jobs if they didn't express support, heartfelt or not?

Now, I am not from the UK so it is entirely possible that some level of support slipped past my notice. Regardless, I call BS.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Richard (profile), 1 Mar 2016 @ 7:41am
  
  Re: Public Support??
  
  Now, I am not from the UK so it is entirely possible that some level of support slipped past my notice.
  
  I AM from the UK and the "support" passed me right by too (at least any "public" part of it).
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Noel Coward, 1 Mar 2016 @ 6:58am

It was nice knowing you, rest of the world.

Already, a schoolkid got visited by the police because they accessed the website of UKIP. It can only get worse.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Whoever, 1 Mar 2016 @ 8:28am

Not just waning support
The UK is embroiled in discussions about whether it should leave the EU. Pushing this through now is easy because no one is watching.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Wendy Cockcroft, 2 Mar 2016 @ 2:48am
  
  Re: Not just waning support
  38 Degrees Manchester and the Pirate Party UK are. We've also got the Greens on board as they've been subject to intrusive surveillance. I've got another article on 38 Degrees Manchester coming out soon — I'm just waiting for approval from the editorial board to publish it.
  
  The same Lords who blocked the last Snoopers' Charter will help us out again, we just need to get the pressure on and keep it on. Our main talking point is that mass surveillance is ineffective at protecting us from terrorism as it gives the intelligence agencies too much junk to sift through in order to find anything useful.
  
  h/t to TD for giving us all the information we need to put our cammpaign together. All we need now is to get more people on board.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Mar 2016 @ 2:05pm

Who would think that the Stasi would reborn in UK?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]