I worked on a minor, non-secure, tangentially GHCQ-aligned project. They're the most risk averse organisation I've ever met. Like, pathologically risk averse. I'd bet a small mortgage they had no oversight of that call.

> > Also fairly sure GCHQ probably bashing their heads on the table.

Core parts of GCHQ might love the potential honey pot. But their offshoot NCSC [1] will be table-flipping big time.

* [1] https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/

There is absolutely now way GCHQ signed off on this.

And yet they are powerless. Back to recording private conversations like the Stasi then. What a wonderful institution. They're useful how, exactly?

Not smacking their heads into the table nearly hard enough. Not even close.

That hyperbole might be an improvement.

Literally copying the literal Stasi approach to spying (not the rest, just spying) would simultaneously improve the quality of the data and reduce the negative side effects relative to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

By definition, in their line of work if you knew exactly how useful and effective they were they would not be doing their job properly. They report to the UK government, not to you and not to me even though I am a UK citizen (as you may be, I don't know). They have worked for governments lead by or including all three main political parties in the UK and they all decided they were useful enough to them to keep, in pursuing their goals on behalf of the people who elected them. That's good enough for me.

But we do know how effective they aren't. And we do know that they have placed themselves above the law. If that doesn't concern you it really should.

The macho pose that comes out everytime someone suggests they should be subject to, you know, the law and behave better than Stalin's henchmen is very worrying.

So who is the politician who will is effective enough to provide true oversight and rein them in when required.

Name that politician. Any party.

Do you see the problem now?

>...and behave better than Stalin's henchmen

Yes see, this is why almost nobody in the general population takes opinions like yours at all seriously.

A hydraulic press could be useful here, I think.