Anti-terror fight 'will need privacy sacrifice'
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Independent Minds
Citizens will have to sacrifice their right to privacy in the fight against terrorism, a former senior security official warned today.
Sir David Omand, the Cabinet Office's former security and intelligence co-ordinator, said in future the security services would need access to a wide range of personal data, including phone records, emails and travel information.
In a research paper on national security strategy, Sir David wrote: "Finding out other people's secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules."
The document for the Institute for Public Policy think tank outlines plans to track terrorist groups through a state database which would also contain the details of innocent people.
He wrote: "Modern intelligence access will often involve intrusive methods of surveillance and investigation, accepting that, in some respects this may have to be at the expense of some aspects of privacy rights.
"This is a hard choice, and goes against current calls to curb the so-called surveillance society - but it is greatly preferable to tinkering with the rule of law, or derogating from fundamental human rights.
"Being able to demonstrate proper legal authorisation and appropriate oversight of the use of such intrusive intelligence activity may become a major future issue for the intelligence community, if the public at large is to be convinced of the desirability of such intelligence capability."
The "intrusive" surveillance techniques would involve mining databases for information on airline bookings and other travel data, passport and biometric data, immigration, identity and border records, criminal records and other government and private sector data, including financial and telephone and other communications records.
Sir David said such information may be held in national records, covered by Data Protection legislation, but it might also be held offshore by other nations or by global companies, and may or may not be subject to international agreements.
"Access to such information, and in some cases to the ability to apply data mining and pattern recognition software to databases, might well be the key to effective pre-emption in future terrorist cases," he wrote.
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Comments
Benjamin Franklin: "A society that will give up a little freedom to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both"
They sit in their offices all day, with their cuppa's dreaming up more ways to count the sugar cubes in the hope that some other idiot will listen to them and implement another restrictive piece of legislation to curtail our liberties, not realizing of course that one day they too will retire and they will be subject to the same restriction. No more able to flaunt their brass decorations to get through the Supermarket Check point, and that is too get in, getting out will be an ordeal, cause just about everything in your trolley, can go "BANG".
Long before all these restictive practices were dreamed up, we had more than suffient laws which the Police could use without handcuffing the nation. If they relly want too stop the fanatics, lets all move abroad and leave them the country, after all with them all coming over here, there IS more than plenty of space to setup A "new uk". NOW WERE DID I LEAVE ME THUNDERBIRDS ID CARD?
Will we get a choice in this?
When do we get angry?
Saddam´s regime will look like mother Theresa´s convent!!!
Then the little people won't have to worry any more that the top brass haven't had their hands in the till, right?
Aah, now I can relax about the future, and won't have to worry about the reasons which caused the people to turn into terrorists in the first place! Phew!
When even the ex-head of MI5 thinks the UK has gone too far that should be a rallying call to the masses to wake up and realise what is going on in this country. Today there are even reports that the police may start using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to spy on British people. These are the unmanned drones that the US have been using in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its getting ridiculous.
Paulf1945, re the Home Office as an Internet Service Provider, you should google the Phorm/BT trials that were carried out in 2006 and 2007. Tens of Thousands of BT customers had their internet connections illegally intercepted by Phorm and BT without customer consent or knowledge. What makes this worse is that it wasn't even done for anti-terrorism but for advertising purposes. So far BT and Phorm have managed to evade prosecution but the EU has written to the UK government for a third time demanding answers as to why there was no prosection.
Mr.Straw by vetoing the FOI act has concretely admitted that there has been wrongdoings in the government and they know by disclosing the facts the true democratic pressures would lead to mass resignations and ultimately fall of an ill fated and sleazy government.
We did not need this when the IRA were successfully detonating bombs in Northern Ireland and over here in the UK, a far far more effective and deadly campaign, I as a younger person was caught up in the 1974 Euston bomb which thankfully was defused and I didn't need to fear the police or government then, they were working on my side, it would of been inconceivable then, utterly alien for a police officer to demand papers or point guns at innocent British people, yet that was a real bomb, not the fantasy bombs we are constantly threatened with yet never materialise.
A famous freedom fighter once said that if you were willing to trade freedom for security then you deserve neither, very concise and apt in this day and age.
Yet it still comes down to trust and this government, with its corruption inherent throughout the upper echelons of Whitehall CANNOT be trusted and therefore cannot be given these powers, in the week that we find out that our security services are complicit in highly criminal actions of torture, they have the temerity to ask for more powers, with a government standing there and asking us once again, trust us, don't fear us, they lie, lie, lie and lie some more and still ask us to trust them.
Ask yourselves this, why do the security services need powers to snoop without court warrant? They can do these things now with ease by simply asking the courts for the power to act, it is secret, the target is not in the know but it gives a level of scrutiny that they are asking us to waive away, is that not worrying? The home of modern democracy, law and justice is asking for the very right to sidestep those valuable and crucial aspects of this land.
Can the security services be trusted? No, they have been seen to lie and act in a criminal fashion, can the police be trusted? No, they too have shown in the last five years that they will lie and cover up, ignore the the law and act in the governments interest over their employer the taxpayer, the simple answer to all of this is not one aspect of this government, its apparatus can be trusted with something as crucial as our private lives.
I'm not a terrorist or a criminal but I will be damned if I give up my rights and expectations without a fight, if Sir David wants to turn this country into a war zone, then all this government needs to do is carry on as it is now, there is a limit on how far governments can push their people and this government is asking for far too much with little justification.
The only choice we have is to say no, and say it with power. Say no, and refuse to cooperate. Say no, and face hell if one needs to, in order to declare once and for all that our privacy and our freedoms, Magna Carta notwithstanding, are our birthright already as human beings, and as children of God, we are not obliged to submit to the authority of any man, agency, govenment or state that threatens that birthright. Will you stand together, or let them tear us apart? As Shelley stated, "we are many, they are few."
These surveillance techniques have been used in the past to make a case against many criminals , the difference is that then , the individual/group were targeted as suspects before being subject to intrusive surveillance measures . I don't think anybody has a problem with that .
The idea though , that we should all be subject to these information gathering exercises regardless of innocence or guilt in order to find suspects goes against everything that the Brits have stood and fought for for centuries .
Those advocating such measures in a democratic society are nothing short of tyrants .
Thankfully , Europe will continue to redress such matters . However , this will only end up with the likes of Qatada et all receiving more awards because our incompetent Government and Police force can't get anything right .
Why do they got just "chip" us and be done with it!!
If that's what those who are against terrorism believe, I think I'll take my chances with the terrorists, thanks. I'd rather run the risk of being blown up by religious maniacs on a bus, than be shot on a tube station by the police or shipped off to a CIA torture camp in Eastern Europe.
Effective governance I beleive is one of trust and accountability, two items sadly lacking within Government and Banking. As a precursor let's have transparency and effective freedom of information enshrined in European legisaltion.
Are we now to be considered administratively guilty until convicted?
You only have to look at what new laws and rules are being imposed on us to see that it is leading to something far more sinister and of a much greater scale than they would have you to initially believe.
We are only a few footsteps behind the further restrictions of what are already being imposed on the likes of America.
The only thing that I will gain from you taking note of my comment is OUR total freedom, I merely suggest to you, not demand of you.
We really need to be looking elsewhere for the real threats to our society and its wellbeing, and most of them are within, sitting in Cabinet (now doubly secretive thanks to Straw), the Civil Service, security services and Downing Street. Anyone getting a pattern here?
If they want to stop terrorism, then stop terrorizing the Middle East. And the rest of the world for that matter. United States Britain, Israel have created these terrorists and now they treat everyone like one.
How's it feel to live in a lie, there's nothing democratic about electing term dictators, whom the public has no control over, who then pass laws to control the very public they're supposed to answer to.
How does gathering information on every individual in the country help fight terrorism? Why aren't just the so called terrorists in the database?
The reason is because they think we are all potential terrorists. And if they keep this kind of thing up I'm sure they will give us all justification to take on the title of terrorist.
A country where your own politicians cannot be held accountable, where information about your government and its practices is denied to the public. It seems they have more to hide then we do.
Do you want a George bush, democracy? Because that's exactly what you got.
Government simply has to stop doing all the many things that make once normal, sane young people get so frustrated and angry that they can be manipulated into killing and maiming innocent people.
Put simply, ministers, senior civil servants, police etc must behave honourably and honestly, even if that means saying unpleasant things about allies or bankers or whoever. No, sorry, that's being unrealistic...
More guff from another droid with vested interest.
They really are getting desperate now.
More guff from another droid with a vested interest.
They really are getting desperate now.
From 9/11 to the War On Turr,Inc it's all lies lies lies.
Stasiland to the power of infinity.
We know where you live.
It seems to me that we have no say........& that is a democracy!
I refuse to travel to the USA because of their policy towards recording details about us, I guess now our own country that used to be free is going the same way..........
Freedom, or last of the free, ha, & not for much longer!
We lost until we are prepared to say this is enough! Then these new laws will be enacted upon us the people who they were designed to protect us.
I rather die knowing the "possibility of a terror attack" then live in fear of the state. At least I die free.
The only terrorists are those in power. They use Problem Reaction Solution, incrementalism, programming and compartmentalisation to bring about their fascist One World Corporate Order.
The Public are being led by the Nose via manipulating and lying mainstream media, their propoganda arm, and the reality is the Nazis weren't defeated, they were rescued and now we have to rise to the SAME challenge our forfathers thought was vanquished.
It's the Rise of the 4th Reich and this time they intend to kill 5.5 Billion backed up with Overpopulation lies via density manipulation, which is where their economic disparity immigration policies come in, and cheered on by barking mad eugeniscist scum.
STOP being fooled by these idiots!
Why do i think this because there will be a ban on any groups converging, unless its a muslim demonstration.
We will not be allowed to vote as this will cause a problem for the government, they will lose all their perks, bonuses and power
GB will then not be able to "Save the world" which he has been waiting 10 years for his mentor Tony Bliar, to give up, AND HE WONT
Also we wont have found enough Illegal Immigrants to give voter registration cards to so the can put the PRE-PRINTED vote into the ballot box
joolz