So what happens when using and optimising these systems becomes a priority for the state?
The apparatus is there, and capabilities can catch up to opportunities it presents.
Twice I nearly lost my father to terrorism in London. (Sliding Doors commuter moments both times — by sheer chance not being in the very usual place at the very usual time). I remain pretty relaxed about the idea that people who wish to bomb trains and tubes and buses can't get across London without the awareness that they could be tracked.
You cannot live your life paranoid, and while I think the evidence is clear that we need a small readjustment with the security state (as is evidenced by the BBC's extraordinary battle to get them to admit they lied to a court about a neonazi agent) I think it's better to understand that, yes, sometimes people are watching.
Better than the pretence that constitutional rights protect people they clearly do not protect, or that because the CIA or NSA promise not to do something, they aren't doing it.
I don't think there is any benefit in importing the paranoid style of US politics (R. Hofstadter) to the UK. And I think the weird breathless panic Americans have about London is their problem. We, living here, shouldn't choose to imagine it is true, when it isn't. London is safer than every comparable US city and transport policing is a big, big, big part of why. And if freedom-loving Americans have scared themselves too much to visit, I am not sure why we should care.
I don't know a single American that has ever expressed any sentiment that London is unsafe. I know a few that have some stupid notions about immigrants in the UK, but that isn't exclusive to people on this side of the pond.
Genuinely, though. Americans just don't worry about safety in London outside of scams and petty crime inherent to any big tourist city.
Where is the evidence that it is a peculiarly American belief? Or were you just eager to pick on Americans
Given how constant it is, and how it comes from the freedom-fries-nitwit end of the spectrum, and has gone on for a couple of decades now, I tend to assume it has a receptive audience.
Agree! Life is so much better.
> Twice I nearly lost my father to terrorism in London.
Oh. You just don’t know the definition of the word “paranoia”.
I do, however, accept that some brown men with backpacks have blown up tube trains, that the direct causes of that are things I may not even know about, that the risk has not gone away at all, and that indeed at some points the risk may be severe. I can't know which.
But the security services can.
I can decide not to be paranoid about being watched, too.
Anyways. Very few people die to terrorism. It's just a great excuse to take away people's freedom because they are scared.