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Comment by harkyns_ruins | Hacker News Reader

Seems to be a pretty common theme going on now, at least among the five eyes and any beholden countries.

The one thing that makes me (grimace) laugh is that with this level of surveillance, they seem to be either a) incredibly incompetent because of all the corruption, paedophilia and so on that seems to go unpunished/uncaught, or b) a tool used by people higher up the chain for other purposes.

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Probably because the data is only used for intelligence / contra intelligence purposes and quiet rightly the plod (Police) are not allowed to go on fishing expeditions.

Well the <sarcasm>good news</end sarcasm> is that the new laws being proposed in the UK will give the data to the police as well. Given the record of abuse of such data it won't be long before they are dragnetting the database.

That's the worrying issue then the Police and the Home Secratery are not getting on at the moment - I can see the lords putting some amendments down to kill off general access by the plod.

Well the current laws passed in Australia mean a large array of government departments can see our metadata.

That aside, we know the intelligence gathered has been used for parallel construction... perhaps just selectively I guess.

Dragnet surveillance data must be used selectively: you don't want to use it against your "confidential informants", after all. That would ruin their testimony in later cases, and give previously convicted "perps" grounds for appeal.

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