Re:UK National police unit monitors 9,000 'domestic extremists'
by jumblesale on Thursday June 27, 2013 @09:06AM
(#5952051)
I don't remember but did the BBC run the story on TV? I don't remember it being discussed but I might not have seen the news that day. My point was that none of the other papers picked this up. There's been a lot of talk online but I don't think that's where the majority of people get their news from.
Re:UK National police unit monitors 9,000 'domestic extremists'
by ollysb on Thursday June 27, 2013 @09:25AM
(#5952119)
My parents watch the BBC news religiously, I asked them if they'd heard anything about the NSA story a couple of days after the story broke and they were completely unaware. When I brought their attention to some of the articles online their reaction was outrage. I wonder what the national reaction would have been had the coverage been more thorough. I find it difficult to believe there aren't plenty of journalists out there wishing they could get their teeth into a meaty story like this one, what's holding them back?
Re:UK National police unit monitors 9,000 'domestic extremists'
by colin_jack on Tuesday July 09, 2013 @09:06AM
(#6012430)
They hardly covered it on the news/radio broadcasts I saw, also worth noting that although the BBC Website did have some articles about it they weren't prominent on the main news page at all.
This is EDIT not correct.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02xxvbr)
0833 Sir Malcom Rifkind, a former foreign secretary and the current chairman of the commons intelligence and security committee, and Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, analyse allegations that GCHQ has snooped on web information.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23059065)(http://www.b...
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23004080)
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23048259)
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23017108)
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23051248)
etc etc etc.
> Why aren't the government being hauled over the coals for this thing?
There's no evidence that GCHQ are doing anything illegal, nor anything new. They've been doing this for many years. It's what they say they do. It's what they're set up to do.
GCHQ having a 3 day cache of communication-content data is little different to telecoms companies keeping a similar cache[1] except the laws are clearer about what GCHQ can and can't do with the data.
In terms of privacy violation there are much worse examples than GCHQ slurping everything. Corrupt public officials (eg: police officers) selling off information to newspapers; workers for telecoms companies having unauthorised access; people with access to medical records gossiping.
Note that the broader collection you mention is, at the moment, just "meta data" (routing information), and not content data. I guess while not be acceptable it is less unacceptable than collecting content data. (If that makes sense.)