Contacting your MP is easy using https://www.writetothem.com/ or the dedicated anti-DRIP page at ORG https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/no-emergency-stop-...
This time I think I went too angry, because last time I think I was too polite:
Dear MP,
I sincerely hope you will be voting against the ridiculous "Emergency phone and internet data storage law" on Monday. Blanket surveillance of millions of innocent civilians is short sighted, reckless and dangerous. I am well aware that the excuse is to prevent terrorism, but is there any evidence at all that it will be key in terrorism prevention? We seem to be doing a pretty good job of preventing terrorism already, and any extra (possibly non existent) benefit this may bring is certainly not worth the MASSIVE loss of liberty of the people.
I am disgusted and horrified that so many intelligent people in Westminster are so short sighted to think that surveillance, with is horrific brutal history, is going to "work this time".
Yours sincerely,
Me
The problem I see with your letter is that it may well be assumed [by your MP] that this law is merely codifying current covert practices in order to be able to force parties who have perhaps recently reneged on past agreements to allow "monitoring". In that case your statement makes a tacit approval of such codification.
Also, we mortals don't necessarily have inside information of the current surveillance that is working, and so appealing to [recent] history can again seem to be an appeal founded on successful covert surveillance.
I'm not clear what this refers to?
inside information of the current surveillance that is working
This is a serious problem with the whole thing. It's very difficult to bring under democratic control because it's not public. There are a few convictions, but overall we have no idea how real the threat is. Some of us fear we're being sold the proverbial tiger-repelling rock.
Then there's the abuses. Mostly these come out thirty years later, but there are currently questions of torture, of feeding data to the drone strike programme, of targeting nonviolent left wing protestors, etc.
Then there's the apparent failure to prosecute serious crimes by members of the establishment, of which the latest is the alleged missing paedophile dossier that passed across Leon Brittan's desk.
Dear MP,
I hope you will be voting against the emergency legislation being forced through parliament on Monday to make phone and internet companies log all information.
As a software professional with over a decade's experience in the industry, I can tell you that logging all such data in this manner is not just an obvious abuse of UK citizen's rights, and most likely of citizens of other countries - it is also dangerous in it's own right.
Specific questions need to be answered before any kind of mass storage of information such as this can take place. Things such as:
- which "named" people will be responsible for collating this data at which companies?
- where will this data be stored?
- what are the security arrangements around this?
- what are the repercussions for breaches of security?
... to name a few.
Do not just assume that these questions have all been answered by the appropriate "techy", it is YOUR responsiblity to ask these questions and vote against any policy that does not provide appropriate answers. I quote the following examples of cases where proper consideration was not taken. These are from my personal experiences:
- finding my National Insurance number and name in an "anonymised" freely available government dataset. And the NI of a friend.
- working at a large blue chip company that required me to be escorted in and out of the server room and taken to a specific server, only for the person doing the escorting to get bored and prop the door open with some wood and say, "don't tell anyone".
- being given elevated priviledges to a network simply to "get something done". (This one happens more than you'd think).
- being asked for information for a security check by the Police only for the email to include private information such as the requester's ID code.
Yours sincerely,
Phil Barr.
The only chance for a resolution is to vote a minority party in with a decent privacy manifesto and hope the hell they stick to it.
Unfortunately any chance of a change to our ward based voting scam is at the mercy of the majority populous of moronic slop thoroughly invested in "anyone different is bad" and "support our boys in their imperialist rampage" driven by the community hate machines of the Sun and the Daily Mail[1], so we're fucked.
[1] I've tamed this down from some of the horrific things I've seen posted on Facebook which make me very embarrassed to be associated to this nation. The same people moaning about extremism, then within 2 minutes calling for the heads of everyone to be removed. Actually perhaps this is why we need surveillance. Should I support the bill because everyone has gone batshit? It's utterly sickening.
I think we're beyond that. The whole system is broken i.e. government, parliament, "democracy", elections, parties etc.
Really, parties, elections, government and such are just a distraction from the fact that corporations control the world.
I'd be a noisy activist but I'd rather subvert the system silently and educate my children to be ethical, upstanding and to quietly have zero respect for implied authority. Better a grey man[1] than a dead man walking.
[1] from the survivalist wingnuts, but a valid philosophy: "Grey man - an individual who possesses the skills, ability and intent to blend into any situation or surrounding without standing out, concealing his or her true skills, ability, and intent from others."
Elections still work provided that you can get people to agree with you. It's an uphill struggle on complex issues but it's far better than a violent alternative.
What you need to look at is high finance, defence and global infrastructure corporations.
Personally I have written to my MP several times in several different constituencies only to receive back the same cookie cutter party line on the subject and addresses none of the valid concerns I raise, I hear this same from others about their MPs.
If you live in a contested constituency and your MP is not a minister, you are likely to receive a more substantive response. However you should not expect them to have access to a subject-matter expert; an MP is one person with a staff of around four or five office workers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28235699
I loved this line: "I don't think the governments are in the business of disrupting passengers' travel plans for no reason."
I think we just have to accept that this security state is going to be a permanent state of affairs. Leave while you can.