JonCox

> "Except when it's not. No one disagrees the advantages afforded to us with access to data. However with great power comes great responsibility and our leaders, including the institutional powers behind them, invariably show a lack of the latter."

It would be political suicide for a UK politician to use the data the police and security forces have for political gain (assuming they got caught of course). It just doesn't happen.

> "That is patently untrue. People who understand the disadvantages and pitfalls of unfettered access to data care very much and fight for our rights even if we are too busy to make it a priority in our lives. The EFF have made it their job to care for example."

It's nice there are people out there making sure things don't get too out of hand. I just question their underlying beliefs about our need for privacy.

Also the "no-one cares" goes both ways. I seriously doubt the state cares about my conversations with friends, most people just aren't that interesting. Perhaps Hacker News suffers from collective delusions of grandeur ;)

I guess it really comes down to who can 'reconstruct' my life. If it's the police or security services I believe that's absolutely fine, whoever you are (journalists, lawyers etc. included)

The UK government don't misuse surveillance for political reasons, if they did there would be uproar. We're not slipping into an authoritarian state, that would be completely at odds with British culture and where we're really heading.

I'm just tired of seeing a trend of people who post here all spouting the same anti-surveilance, privacy is everything, ideals. Without adding any caveats for the benefits and protection we gain from people watching over us. It feels like there is total disregard here for what we would lose by giving it up.

I'm okay with giving up a little privacy for the greater good.

I sometimes feel the Hacker News crowd are a bit out of touch with the rest of the population.

Here in the UK most people I know feel safer with surveillance, it's used primarily to keep law and order.

We don't live in some authoritarian state where it's used for nefarious means, it's used to keep the public safe.

And seriously, why would you care if you're sitting on a database? What difference does it make to anything?

And I want to know when this mythical time was when we all had total privacy? I don't understand what bothers people so much about a person in a CCTV monitoring station looking at them sitting on a bus, or a spook reading the emails I send to my parents. Honestly, no-one cares.

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Anyone else notice the similarities with Madrigal from Breaking Bad?

Low key, large profits, extensive distribution network. I may be paranoid but...

(Okay, probably just a coincidence/I've been watching too much tv recently.)