Should We Have A Snooping Law?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38068078
On the basis that anyone doing anything remotely iffy can use the dark web or various TOR techniques, is this really necessary? Is the government just setting up a snoopers charter to gather data to flog to business?

[Peter Pedant]

is this question about free-tee supporting ooman rights ? - here not to be snooped upon ?

Never mind free-tee wait a mo' and under the Great Repeal Law we soon wont have any ( rights I mean ) - they will all have gone down the pan as you have pleaded for so long !

[jno]

they're also cracking down on, tadaaa, websites showing female ejaculation

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-non-conventional-sex-acts-online-internet-pornography

Not to combat terrorism, I suppose, but there's an awful lot of control freakery out there.

[ichkeria]

There's nothing to stop a VPN network provider doing exactly what Mr Blessing is afraid of. In fact, given that the only reason they might have to be worried about this is that their clients might be up to no good anyway, which by extensioon makes a significant number of them likely to be "dark net dogy" anyway, I would have thought their was quite a high chance of blackmail

[Gromit]

GCHQ already monitors tinternet, so the national security thing is already covered.

We wouldn't agree to all our mail that receive and send being opened by the Post Office, and all information therein being recorded. It would be an invasion of privacy. This is just an electronic version of reading our letters and is an invasion of privacy.

No doubt we will get the usual nonsense replies that it should be allowed because if you nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Law abiding people are entitled to their privacy, and being electronically tagged when you have not done anything wrong, is draconian.

[ichkeria]

"Law abiding people are entitled to their privacy, and being electronically tagged when you have not done anything wrong, is draconian. "

Many VPNs are not law-abiding though, as we know

[ToraToraTora]

Bang on gromit, BA. PP, someone translate!

[ichkeria]

GCHQ may "monitor the internet" but what they can't do is read encrypted internet traffic, for various reasons.
The bottom line is that the more encryption there is the more privacy there is, but also the more secrecy. It's the usual debate between the two

(When you extol the virtues of Trump, Tora, you seem to think "big business" can do no wrong :-) )

[ToraToraTora]

Not sure how big business comes into this, I'm talking about governments using the fear of terrorism to get access to our private lives when the main reason they want it is invalid.

[Zacs-Master]

I'm pretty sure that, due to the number of times certain sensitive key words appear, this site occasionally pops up on the GCHQ 'radar'. Anyone on here with any fear of retaining their privacy should take note.

[ichkeria]

...and clogging it to business I believe you said Tora
As for GCHQ paying any attention to this site, I don't know for sure but I think GCHQ's remit is foreign communications. Not keeping tabs on discussion groups and during like this one. If anyone was doing that I would be more likely to be MI5, but I can't believe it would be a very efficient way to work. Somebody has presumably twigged that the words 'support for ISIS' for example taken out of context are not worth worrying about.