General Chat

Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear from the British intelligence services, the Foreign Secretary William Hague said, and he also said that reports the UK's eavesdropping centre GCHQ had circumvented the law to gather data on British citizens were nonsense.

Surely our Foreign Secretary would not be economical with the truth - there again it has been said that pigs might fly ;-)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22832263

Does this GCHQ eavesdropping allegation bother you - from a personal point of view, as I have nothing to hide, it does not bother me, as long as what they are doing is legal. However in saying that, I am concerned that this eavesdropping that is allegedly taking place may be illegal as it does not appear to have the consent of Parliament :-|

And what an opt out the Foreign Secretary has tomorrow when he makes a statement on this to the House of Commons, as all he will probably say time after time is - I cannot answer that on the grounds of national security ;-)

I will listen tomorrow to his statement while humming - and the band played believe it if you like :-D

IF they want to be bored senesless read my FB etc., I do not care

What we should now all do is post really innocent threads which happen to contain the words'terrorist' 'bombs' and squeeze in an innocent remark about the good old 'USA'

That will screw them no end as these are trigger words for the programmes which monitor emails etc.,

We could make the system crash - people power.......

So a sentence along the lines of

When I was a kid I was a terrorist, I terrorised all my neighbours with water bombs and because of this my parents refused to take me to the USA for a holiday.



:-D :-D :-D

If all this eavesdropping on anybody and everybody - as threatened earlier not just the GCHQ angle - is going to be so universal the processing of it all will take a huge amount of work, should create a lot of employment!

They dont seem to target the people who need targetting enough (terrorists...child abusers....crimelords...) if they want to stalk little me, I have no issue but its a waste of cash.

often, it isnt what YOU say that counts, its what THEY imply what you meant when you said it........

Question..........
When did you stop beating your wife?
answer,
I didnt,I havent......
( meaning I have never beaten my wife)
implied....
so you still beat her then!!

PigletsPal - just loved your suggestion :-D :-D :-D

ALL emails are monitored - and we would all be very naive to think otherwise.

However, the monitors is done mostly by computer and hence by suggestion of innocent emails etc., containing trigger words which the computer programmes look for.

Me I just do not care, they can monitor away at mine, as said before they would find that like all other Brits. I complain about the weather, do family history research and send boing emails to family and friends and have a laugh with old mates on FB. Pretty much the par for the course of the majority of us. ;-) ;-) <3

Not really followed this story. Did see a young man in Hong Kong with an American accent. Looked like a serious version of Private Pike. Would he be the whistle blower?

I rather think I would believe him over Hague and the Americans.

I was amused by your example of a leading question, Bobtarian. I used that exact self-same example and was immediately reported. And the report was upheld!!!!!!

"The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."

G.O. 1984

Shhhhh! I can hear someone moving in the radiator ;-)

Oh no it's stopped now the timers gone off :-D

Doesn't bother me.............................

Here is the link about the whistle blower

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2338534/Edward-Snowden-speaks-NSA-contractor-leaked-details-surveillance-scheme-reveals-himself.html

The Foreign Secretary will make a statement on this to The House of Commons at 15:30pm today. It will be interesting when he is questioned by MP's to see, just how many of these questions he will dodge, by saying that to answer would endanger national security ;-)

I just love to watch politicians squirming and wriggling when they are pressed to give answers :-D

Hey, I posted about the noises from the radiator and the site went down spooky!

Still It all seems quite here just a couple of workmen in brand new overalls sitting in a van opposite must be listening to their music ‘cos they have earpieces in. And a chap must be an estate agent in a suit just called at the neighbours either side.

Must say the council street sweeper is really thorough he has done the same bit three times, opps must go, knock at the door………………………

Mayfield, Mayfield. Can I stand your bail?

No problems with surveillance in the Rhondda. We have just gone to fortnightly collections and fortnightly street cleaning. So 13 clear days to get up to any mischief we want :-D :-D

No problem for me ...if anyone wants to listen to all the rubbish I talk about, well OK??.....BUT .. if it can stop just one terrorist attack then to the Gov I say go ahead.

There 1001 ways which can be used to elude the attentions of GCHQ PRISM the local council plods and so on and so forth.

The terrorists who have been caught and convicted here in the UK have all been remarkable for a remarkably dumb approach in carrying out their objectives.

Spasmodic acts of terror will not destabilise any democratic country. The 30 year campaign of the IRA got nowhere, ditto the Red Brigade in Italy or ETA in Spain. All of these vicious organisations were defeated without mass surveillance.

Which poses the question why do supposedly democratic governments feel the need to get into this sort of activity normally the preserve of totalitarian regimes? It is very expensive.

This kind of surveillance will certainly not help very much in stopping young deluded people committing felonies in suburban London and so on.

The usefulness of it lies in what is called "data mining" whereby large amounts of aggregated data can be used to aid commercial advertising ( the basic business proposition of Google ), predict crime ( West Midlands police are into this also see "Minority Report" and look for potential terrorist hot spots. So well and good.

Unfortunately the possession of this sort of data has always created an never-yet-been-resisted temptation for misuse of the information and the suppression of political opposition.

As an example take the pressure group "38". Using the kinds of net monitoring that Theresa May is so keen on people participating in and supporting "38" could ( an will ) encounter all sorts of problems in their everyday lives. In that way people become afraid to show dissent.

“Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."
"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.”
- FK

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=minority+report+trailer&oq=minority+report&gs_l=youtube.1.1.0l10.1284035.1288717.0.1291300.19.12.1.6.6.0.199.1444.5j7.12.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.nhGBKmsWjAM

Well that was odd two guys in black looking for a Mr Mayfield, most urgent they said.
I showed them my driving licence and told them a Mr Mayfield lives two doors down.
Next thing he is getting into a big black car and it must have been quite full up because him and his wife had to go in the boot.

Yes it does bother me, it's a matter of principle.
If they can watch innocent members of the public, why can't they watch and catch paedophiles?
Why can't they ban porn from the internet?
If it's against the 'civil liberties' of saddos to ban porn sites (both on the internet, and especially on TV), surely it's against my 'civil liberties' to be able to see the same.
I also thought it was against the law (and civil liberties) to be stalked by anyone, either by phone or on the internet!

LOL! Mayfield you made me laugh!! :-D
Maggie what you have written , well put that way you certainly have a point. but think the sooner civil liberties for paedophiles/terrorists/etc etc. are curbed the better still don't think I will mind people listening in to my mundane conversations ..at least I don't think I will
:-S :-S

Did I catch an item on Radio Wales right today? The US has a place in Utah where they have created a profile of everyone in the world. They know loads of security stuff about everyone.

Of course, the vast majority of us are fairly law abiding and would not overthrow governments.

Will have a look to see what the Utah story was all about and come back to you. Unless anyone else has heard it today :-S