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Will the citizens allow it to be passed if they knew about it via some news source? Of course "news" now a days is about kardarshians or justin beiber than about things that requires serious attention. This may have hardly got tiny little square cm area in newspapers or 30 seconds air time. Thus sinks democracy. People who are informed are way less in number than non-informed people, but all get to vote thus diluting the vote of well informed people(whose size smaller and smaller as quality of news sources declines). I think there needs to be a law that punishes false information, but at the same time protects journalism.

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Quite a lot of them would be in favour of it as a means of "fighting terrorism". It's not so much what is reported as how it's spun.

The really big thing is the "internet connection record": every TCP connection you make is supposed to be logged by the ISP: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

(just look at that list of justifications. Of course! It's about catching paedos! The all purpose justification for everything.)

Besides, it's been buried under the bigger politics news of the moment - Trump and the continuing mystery of Brexit.

its all misuse of language. a spade should be called spade. Here is a situation, the people staying in their own country and fighting against outside forces. Who is real terrorist? Those outside forces that have no business being there in the first place are the ones doing real terrorizing. The war on terrorism is just a double speak. Its war for profits for political and monetary gains.

If as much as 10% of the energy and money spent for all this nonsense was actually used to fight poverty and improve infrastructure and research, we would've been technologically advanced to year 2100 already!

I accepted long time ago I will never be let into the US because of those HN comments, so...

If you regularly kill civilians at random with high explosives, with no way for them to even know something bad will happen, to the point you instill in them the fear of a clear blue sky, isn't that terrorism?

Hello drone strikes in Pakistan...

One fighting man is a terrorist. Thousand fighting men makes an army.

No, it makes a terrorist organization.

(Also, there's zero fighting men on the shooting side, under these conditions it's more like people taking potshots with Hellfires).

I think you all are missing the bitter irony in the parent's comment.

This sounds like a potential (new?) attack type though. Just have software that pings certain illegal websites and bam - the target is now a paedo or whatever the attacker wishes.

Come visit my website! Make sure you have JavaScript enabled, friend! :o)

Overcomplicated, just send 'em an email with an <img> link.

In the UK you can already go to prison for refusing to hand over the password to encrypted data. The thing is, anything can be encrypted data. So in theory someone can say that you have encrypted child pornography on your drive, and theoretically, you can go to prison for refusing to give your password to it, even if it doesn't exist.

Generating fake evidence to blackmail someone? No one would do that. They are too busy chasing terrorists.

For those that don't understand this comment, intelligence agencies are known for generating fake evidence and allegations to take down targets - and it's well known that intelligence agencies such as the NSA and GCHQ are not charged with missions to track down terrorists.

A very clever sarcastic comment I think will probably go under the radar because the OP omitted a "/s".

Many people who didn't grow up with online communications don't value online communications and don't expect them to have the same levels of privacy as paper mail - but they'd be horrified if someone else opened their post.

If you mailed each of them (via traditional post) an envelope that was torn open and taped together with a message saying 'the government is doing this to all your mail' they may think differently.

I think that would be an effective public information campaign and this idea should be given serious consideration.

Seconding this. Great physical metaphor, gets to the point. Happy to help out if anyone is serious about it (I'm in the UK).

Not any more now that no one writes real letters. How many people write letters, come to that how many people did write many letters even when it was the only way of doing it, not many I think. I'm 61 and I don't think that my parents wrote many more letters than I do and that is almost none.

So I think it wouldn't be hard to spin opening letters in just the same way as opening network packets. After all only people who are already unusual write letters and those who are different are automatically suspect.

People should be careful of what they wish for. Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter wrote an interesting novel on the consequences of living in a panoptic society, The Light of Other Days.

They not only allowed it to pass, a disturbing number support it. The "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" line has been rolled out in force, and if you express concern in public about this bill, you get suspicious looks. What sites are you visiting that you're so nervous about the government seeing? Some kind of terrorist or pedophile, are you? Then those same people will go home and download torrents of the latest movies, or watch them on their dodgy Kodi box, without a second thought. After all, that's not web browsing, and even if it is, it's not really like they're doing anything wrong, is it?

I think that is the key difference. People feel like these are only minor infractions and that those that have the data will only go after the "real" bad guys. Not realizing that there is a thin line being tread in that argument. Especially since historically we've seen movie studios able to get the data to send cease and desist letters. I also don't think people realize how easy it is to sift through that data.

Also I find it interesting that argument holds so much ground since it has been the catch phrase of tyrannical governments for a hundred years. In Sinclair's "The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation" and from the mouth of Goebbels. Usually people try to distance themselves as far as possible from the NAZIs.

> Will the citizens allow it to be passed if they knew about it via some news source?

The answer is yes, unfortunately. The government in question has a history of terrifying it's citizens into passing legislation. "Shock Doctrine".

Similarly in the United States, people very willingly accept legislation that erodes civil rights because they are frightened and because the purpose and scope of the legislation are obscured.

> I think there needs to be a law that punishes false information

> Thus sinks democracy.

Fixed the order of statements for you..

Note that there are already laws that punish false information in some contexts, such as perjury, fraud and libel.

I meant a law for journalists, similar to malpractice lawsuits against doctors, if they keep spreading misinformation as news.

See your comment's sibling. You can sue for libel or negligence.

I found this page useful:

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/proving-fault-actual-malice-...

> I think there needs to be a law that punishes false information

Dangerous game to play there - who decides what is 'false information', is it the same body that doles out the punishment? If so, we're back at square one.

There's a push by the state to have communications providers enforce their truth for them going on today.

The above commenter is not speaking about something theoretical.

Yes, this has received extensive coverage over the last two years. Google "BBC snoopers' charter" for some examples.

Snoopers charter did get coverage. I didn't think it would pass. If people in UK voiced enough against it to their corresponding representative and this still passed, what good is democracy. It's a new government. They can keep it untill next elections unless there is massive rally against it. By then all this becomes status quo and the slippery slope continues

It passed because uk.gov is passing all kinds of vile crap while everyone is distracted by Brexit.

Most people barely have time and energy for one campaign, never mind ten. So we're going to be seeing a lot more of this.

This is the most toxic and least competent government I've ever seen. And I've seen a few.

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