Why do people get upset about government recording?

[news junkie]

what they do on the internet but continue to use Google? For those concerned about privacy wouldn't they stop using Google and find a less intrusive company?

[Guru Hank]

British diplomats in sensitive positions are warned by GCHQ never to discuss important matters in any room which contains a television set. The IRA had a standing order that nothing was to be discussed in any room containing a computer. If they want to know what you are up to, they can find out. This is just to find out what they didn't know they wanted to know about you.

The main 'backbone' of the UK internet system runs straight through Cheltenham. Go figure.

[-Paine-]

1) I choose to use Google, i would not choose for the Government to intercept my data.
2) I don't log in to Google, so currently my info. is only IP specific and not directly linked to my name. The government logged data would be linked to a name or household (ADSL line etc.)
3) Google is bound by current privacy law, the intention is to change these laws.
4) The government currently requires permission from the Home secretary to intercept communication. The new legislation would enable instant access to presumably IP and port logs (not the content), and phone logs, without the need to request permission i.e. not on a case by case basis. Historically, this has never been possible for landlines.

To keep things in perspective, only 1500 [1] requests are made per year to the government to intercept communication. GCHQ (and possibly the police, i don't know all of the details) wants all the logs without any of the previous privacy restrictions in place.

Edit: Guru hank, presumably cause its easy to place a bug in a television, being such a big piece of kit. However, without tampering it is only a receiver and not a transmitter (excluding a weak signal from the local oscillator).

I was just thinking a Sky-box might be an exception, they are attached to the phone line and could potentially use its modem to record and send information - still a lot of messing about, why not use a microphone or vibrometer to sense the vibrations of a window.

[Ahmed]

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[John Galt]

Google's not the problem when the entire internet data stream is imaged and archived.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03...nter/all/1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information...ess_Office

[PATCH]

At present if UK officials want a user’s data from Google, they must make a legal application. In the first six months of last year, Google received requests for 1,444 users’ data, but only agreed to 63 per cent of them. The system applies similarly to Twitter.
The new legislation on data access to be announced in the Queen’s Speech would do away with all this. Instead it would require all ISPs and social networks to build a “back door” into their systems — effectively a portal through which the State can instantly access all user data. It allows snooping in real time.
Surveillance must always be done within the constraints of laws protecting citizens’ rights. These exist for a very good reason — to act as a check on the considerable power of the State. We have plenty of evidence from elsewhere in the world of what happens when that disappears.

[Atheist]

Seig Heil springs to mind! Getting more like the Gestapo every day.

[musicrulesok]

I'm sorry if I don't want people prying into my private emails and life online, I don't do anything bad, but I don't see why I should have some yogurt knitting snoop pry into my private life. Bloody cameras will be mandatory in people's houses next! We're supposed to live in a democracy not a dictatorship! One day it'll be worse than those places that have so-called few human rights!

PS Do you want the gov to see your medical files? Why can't we see theirs too? This is Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia all over again! Labour camps?????!!!