General News British Prime Minister Suggests Banning Some Online Messaging Apps

I really don't understand why he thinks saying this 4 months before an election is going to win him any votes. People are already annoyed that our civil liberties have been eroded.

 

Paris tragedy and it will win him votes with people who now fear things even more because of recent events

On the one hand greater privacy is good on the net and no one with an ounce of intelligence would usually say it isn't, however it is also a boon for terrorist groups, and terrorist cells within target nations. Greater freedom means attacks like we have seen are more likely to be successful - whilst the intelligence agencies are good they don't have god-like powers that can track every single bad guy.

More security is going to mean some erosion of civil liberties if even on a small scale.

We cannot have our cake and eat it, certainly not in these volatile and precarious times.

 

Even if the government has access to these messages, they have already admitted that it isn't possible for them to prevent every possible terrorist attack. The cynic in me thinks this is merely an excuse for them to track what people are saying, and less to do with actually trying to prevent a terrorist attack. They already excessively collect data on British citizens.

People need some level of privacy. This is supposed to be free nation, but instead we routinely infringe on people's privacy and snoop where snooping isn't needed (and we are also an enemy of the internet, apparently).

David Cameron is a huge hypocrite for going to Paris in support of free speech and freedom of the press when he is so determined to make both barely existent here.

 

Oh I agree, I'm not saying the messaging app ban would be good or useful.

But I do believe more freedom in our lives both digital and real will come at the cost of everyday security. Not so much that any type of attack will increase - more that the success of attacks will increase due to the usefulness of increased net privacy. That if we want cast iron security from threats this could only come from an erosion of civil liberties in some form.

 

I definitely disagree with this. Our right to free speech and privacy is extremely important and it must be protected especially in an age where privacy is becoming a thing of the past. This could be okay if the government were trustworthy, but they aren't.... I mean absolutely no disrespect, but the Paris tragedy and occasional terrorist attacks are not enough to warrant this kind of rash degradation of our civil rights. To live in a free nation will have some costs.... I think the benefits of free communication and privacy outweights the negatives, overall.

 

This is 100% correct, and I could not agree more. This is the underlying point. Even if people COULD trust a particular government with the information, there is no guarantee that a future government would not abuse its powers. Once you lose a civil liberty it is insanely hard to get back.

This is why search warrants and the like exist, and they are usually ALWAYS granted.

Exactly. Freedom has its costs. The current crisis with Islamic terrorism will not exist forever, but it is unlikely that a government will ever roll back its 'war time powers' over civil liberties. Every civil liberty sacrificed should be assumed to be lost forever.