No. My point is that if you wanted speed limits to be enforced accurately and totally, then the technology exists, or can't be very far away. We are talking about laws here, so we are all meant to abide by them, and at all times. So would you be happy for Parliament to vote on cell-phone spying in order to automate the enforcement of speed limits, thus surely relieving the police of this tedious duty (so that they can spend more time fighting crime... and terrorism)? People like to say they have nothing to hide- "come on authorities - have a good snoop in my life, I don't care". But how true is this? Would they be around at Bootsam's nicking him for his possession of a bit of blow if they had the time? Is your income tax return 100% accurate? What about the aircon you put in your man cave and charged to your company? In places like the GDR, the Stasi did spend their time following up on things like this. Is this the sort of country you want to live in? Is it a fair price to pay to keep the beardies from blowing some people up in cities? Is the spy in your car fair enough if it saves 100 road deaths a year?
Unfortunately it is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove how many innocent lives were saved by the mass collection of email / phone calls / text messages / web browsing habits / etc, as well as proving how little difference doing the same made. It's very easy to accept the Spy Agency's own line that they've saved lives because, at one end of the cynicism scale, it keeps them in a job and the budget rolling in. For all we know it could be hundreds. It could also be none.
Thing is, when you work for an organisation, you toil in its service and for its ends, full stop. If your job is to sell insurance policies, then you will do everything within the law to sell as many as possible. If your job is to market hamburgers, you are not concerned with how fat and ill it makes the population, if it means they buy more hamburgers. If your job is to collect information, too much can never be enough. You will attempt to obtain total information, if left to your own devices. The law is just a pain to be got around. If you are operating secretly, then there is a pretty good chance you can get away with things for years. You sometimes see this with informers for spy agencies. The agency will avoid blowing the cover of their mole by allowing a plot to be carried out. For them, the information has become an end in itself and it is more important to keep the agent in place. There have been instances of this in both Northern Ireland and in anti-jihadi operations. If you don't have oversight, you get these aberrations, because that is how organisations work.
This is why I have lived my life to the words "paranoia breeds success" We are never truly free. Remember everyone will fuck you over at some point. You think your living your own life? Think again whilst you jump in to your Euro box and go and do your shopping. Kidding yourself you bought the car cause it saves on mpg and in turn your doing your bit for the planet. Then on the way back from the shopping pick up the Sun newspaper and flick through it when you get home as your watching the propaganda machine called the BBC. Who indirectly tell you when to spend your money etc etc etc. The general public deserve what they get. They bloody voted for for Tony Blair for crying out loud!!! And the main reason people gave was because they fancied a change pmsl
Of course we are never truly free, the idea of freedom is ridiculous as freedom is an illusion. If you think you are free (and this goes for America as well) demonstrate your 'freedom' by walking around naked and stabbing babies in the eyes. Obviously you can't because you are not free to do as you wish. Freedom only ever exists within a set of pre determined boundaries, occasionally those boundaries need to be reviewed. It's not always more restricted either, if you wandered through the streets in skin tight rubber trousers holding your gay lovers hand you'd have been beaten senseless and thrown in jail 100 years ago, now it is perfectly ok.
I think you'll find that there are an awful lot of places in the UK where it is not OK at all. Milton Keynes might be an island of liberality. You might not get thrown in jail these days, just beaten senseless.
It's not the law who will be the problem though. 100 years ago it would have been the first bobby who saw you who would have beaten you and thrown you in jail. I'm sure you can get beaten senseless for wearing the wrong t shirt in the scummier areas of the UK.
Lord Acton wrote: "... I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it...."
Most people are quite happy to hand over intimate details of their personal lives, just have a look some people's Facebook profiles, many people also have clubcards and Nectar cards, which allows organisations to build up a complete demographic profile of an individual, right down to income bracket, political views, social habits etc. people are handing all this intimate personal information over willingly for a couple of measly freebies a couple of times a year. thats why I refuse to get suckered in to all this club card bullshit, I also don't have any social media accounts.
Nectar card is fine by me, due to the £5000 p/a I spend with bp I get a very tangible return. I think i've had about £30 of free goods in sainsburys. It didnt 'sucker' me into sainsburys either, as its my closest shop so i'd be shopping there anyway. Frankly I don't mind sainsburys knowing I use two tanks of fuel a week from the bp in child's way Milton Keynes It's not intimate personal information, it's worthless information For what it's worth, I eat quite a lot of salad, refuse to read newspapers and won't even view the daily fail website, bank with HSBC and voted lib dem in the last general election. I'm 35 and my income bracket is 25 - 40k per annum. It makes absolutely no difference at all to me who knows any of this, if you want to protect information it should at least be something valuable.
Naivety rules. Apathy wins. Today its 'for our own good'. Tomorrow its a stormtrooper boot in your front door because you called someone a twat on a forum.
until its used to track you, put something in your food, so the wife can know where you are 24/7, to know how many miles you do and if you are a risk for insurance, then the premiums increase to unaffordable levels, then you lose your job because you cant afford to get there...and it keeps going until you no longer confirm to what the 'new society' wants and its all over... may sound far fetched but its a plausible as any reason given for tracking all citizens 24/7.
Ooooohhhhhkay...... We are pretty far from reality now. I'm actually a little concerned as the above post is so far from normal it's not healthy.
