Tracking Communication

BBC NEWS | UK | UK 'must log' phone and web use

lives would be at risk if the state could not track communication.

The trouble with this issue is that statement on it's own sounds kind of sensible. You can argue that by not tracking communication, the government is "allowing" murders, assults, robberies etc to happen. But these "Security Experts" have never explained exactly where the line would be. If you argue that by not monitoring communication, the government is "allowing" murders, then that argument will always be true until the government makes everyone where a headset camera and microphone and watches what everyone is doing and every time. It is technically possible to prevent all murders under a system like this, with everyone having someone else watching them 24/7 and alerting the police when they're about to do a murder. But it's also FUCKING RIDICULOUS! Unfortunately the media will prevent all possibility of a debate about this, because they'll say it's a cost benefit analysis and you can't put a price on someones life or something. But personally I'm not sure it's worth the end to our privacy and civil liberties, for measures which I imagine will reduce crime by about 2% or something.

The other point that is s seldom raised in this debate, is that terrorists are likely to not be stupid and use public phone lines or whatever, they use disposable mobile phones and throw them after 1 call. If they were clever they'd use laptops and skype or IRC and Tor encryption which is pretty much unbreakable. So, if the terrorists are at least as clever as me, then all these government proposals are pointless.

Woo.

Technorati Tags: terrorism, surveillance, war on terror, civil liberties, privacy