The BBC website proudly proclaimed that a new law is to be enacted in the UK. The article text stated:
The internet activity of everyone in Britain will have to be stored for a year by service providers, under new surveillance law plans.
Imagine that some innocent user gets a virus through email or from an infected disk. At some point later the virus goes live. The infected computer opens hundreds of porn and pedophilia websites. It has happened in the past and will do so in the future.
Now think about the next logical step. Police start scanning service providers records to see who viewed certain websites. A red flag goes up since viewing any pedophile website is illegal. This is an area where the burden of the proof is upon the accused to prove their innocence.
Like as not, those infected by porn viruses will just groan and reach for a real antivirus program to replace whatever junk was paraded as antivirus software by their computer supplier. The virus will be removed quietly and without fanfare. The record of the visits will be recorded forevermore.
The police might catch a real pedophile and his excuse will be "I had a computer virus". The police catch an innocent who'd had a virus who will say "I had a computer virus". They'll both get 5 years hard time amidst hardened criminals that think little of pedophiles.
Add photography into the mix and photos of the photographers own children and of their family's children.... You can see where that's going... Any remote credibility to the defence that it was a virus has gone.
This is very typical knee jerk reaction legislation and all too common in the UK. Indeed I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin who said ”He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.”
The "security" in question is allegedly against terrorism. The liberty is surrendering one's privacy. I am now reminded of Goering "Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."
All you can do is pray that one day the brainwashed, emasculated public of Britain will wake up and realize that Britain now has more surveillance of its population than the KGB had in Russia and the Stasi in Germany. Were the evil communists right and the saintly capitalists wrong?
The internet activity of everyone in Britain will have to be stored for a year by service providers, under new surveillance law plans.
Imagine that some innocent user gets a virus through email or from an infected disk. At some point later the virus goes live. The infected computer opens hundreds of porn and pedophilia websites. It has happened in the past and will do so in the future.
Now think about the next logical step. Police start scanning service providers records to see who viewed certain websites. A red flag goes up since viewing any pedophile website is illegal. This is an area where the burden of the proof is upon the accused to prove their innocence.
Like as not, those infected by porn viruses will just groan and reach for a real antivirus program to replace whatever junk was paraded as antivirus software by their computer supplier. The virus will be removed quietly and without fanfare. The record of the visits will be recorded forevermore.
The police might catch a real pedophile and his excuse will be "I had a computer virus". The police catch an innocent who'd had a virus who will say "I had a computer virus". They'll both get 5 years hard time amidst hardened criminals that think little of pedophiles.
Add photography into the mix and photos of the photographers own children and of their family's children.... You can see where that's going... Any remote credibility to the defence that it was a virus has gone.
This is very typical knee jerk reaction legislation and all too common in the UK. Indeed I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin who said ”He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.”
The "security" in question is allegedly against terrorism. The liberty is surrendering one's privacy. I am now reminded of Goering "Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."
All you can do is pray that one day the brainwashed, emasculated public of Britain will wake up and realize that Britain now has more surveillance of its population than the KGB had in Russia and the Stasi in Germany. Were the evil communists right and the saintly capitalists wrong?
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