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by rijncur
3371 days ago
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It is the duty of the Home Secretary (and the UK's various nosey institutions - e.g. intelligence agencies, police, etc) to continuously badger us for this information - unfortunately, it's pretty much part of the job description. It is our duty, as the public, to continuously say "no". Disregarding any negative consequences, their motivations are pretty transparent - there's little doubt that being able to read everyone's private messages will enable the intelligence services to better do their jobs. However, as Edward Snowden and others have already shown to us many times over the last few years, the UK government can't be trusted with this responsibility - and that this is probably the thin end of the wedge. Britain is already the closest thing that Europe has to a surveillance state, and the number of people killed in the UK by terrorism is vanishingly small - we are hundreds of times more likely to die in a car accident. Is it really worth giving up the last vestiges of our privacy for a little bit more security? |
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On the contrary. The Home Secretary is literally the holder of the ministerial authority that is required for police and security services to use a lot of the powers they have, and is supposed to be providing oversight and ensuring that those powers are used responsibly.
Unfortunately, that means the Home Secretary spends several hours every day just looking at cases presumably involving some very nasty people. You have to wonder how anyone could keep a balanced perpsective if they're doing that for 20, 30, 40 hours every week for months or years. Everyone who becomes HS in the UK turns into a severe authoritarian within a few months of taking the job, regardless of their prior political views or how reasonable they might be about other matters.