Priti Patel polishes her newly acquired authoritarian credentials.
The home secretary has claimed end-to-end encryption of Facebook’s messaging platforms would hinder police investigations into child abuse and terror plots.
After the Five Eyes security summit, which took place on Monday and Tuesday, Priti Patel said tech firms should not “empower criminals” with their products.
Yeah, yeah, first they came for the paedos and I wasn’t a paedo, then they came for the terrorists and I wasn’t a terrorist. I presume the GPO empowers criminals who send letters through the post and the telecom providers empower criminals who make telephone calls.
These people, it is assumed, are sufficiently vile that the proles, eager to see such scrotes behind bars won’t notice that the criminals aren’t the target – it is mass surveillance of the populace – because it makes life easier for the security services. Apparently.
And, of course, this being a new Conservative Home Secretary, it’s the evil Tories that is the meme of the day.
Except…
I recall the identity cards act of fifteen years or so ago and the huge intrusive database that was to underpin it. That was a series of Labour Home Secretaries, so don’t give me the evil Tories shit because you just missed the point when it flew over your head. But it wasn’t just a Labour idea, was it? During the middle of the previous decade the Tories were dabbling with it and pushing the same hackneyed excuses in justification, despite vigorously opposing it when Labour took it out of the cupboard and gave the turd a polish.
What we are seeing is the usual poison being dripped into the ears of whoever sits in the hot seat. Some, like Ms Patel, are stupid and vainglorious enough to fall for it and not tell the evil little snakes that peddle this particular fruit where to get off on pain of being sacked, taken through Traitor’s Gate and their head put on a spike, which would be the appropriate response to them. Okay, okay, one can dream.
For this isn’t about politicians, self-serving, vain and vacuous though they are. This is about something much darker. A greater evil and a bigger threat to our liberties that lurks within the corridors of power. It is the uncivil service and its authoritarian desire to micromanage us, to spy on us in the name of protection, to see all, hear all and control all. If you want to see Big Brother, look not to the politicians, for they are mere dupes, look to the Humphrey Applebys, for they remain while politicians are transient. These people need to be purged forthwith and replaced with people who understand that we are the masters and they are the servants, not the other way around. And, of course, we, not they, may see our WhatsApp messages, for they are no one else’s business but ours and ours alone.
The cause of liberty once again reminds us that it will only survive – battered and bleeding – through eternal vigilance. The foe is within, I’m afraid.
A good overview of “back doors in encryption” is here:
https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2019/07/government-encryption-backdoors-are-are.html
Now, I don’t mind this IF we can hack politicians e-mails and discredit them … or will it be a case of “For thee but not for me”?
Keep up! It’s 50 years since the GPO ceased to exist.
I’ve worked for BT and let me assure you that the GPO may have ceased to exist decades ago, but UnCivil Service attitudes prevail among middle management.
It is long past time that the last vestiges of this organisation were gutted and the earth salted to prevent its restoration.
BT has held back genuine transformation in the UK for decades due to it’s death grip on ‘the last mile’ and needs to be obliterated to prevent it continuing to do so.
As long as you get rid of ‘possibly the world’s worst company’, Virgin Media, at the same time!
Adequately covered by the old phrase “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in”. I’ve made just this point to my M.P. in the past, but knew full well that it was a waste of time…