the police don't store all of the information. they don't have the data capacity, nor are they intending to. i've spoken on here before in the past about how a friend's dad is actually one of these shadowy people that works in a position that 'doesn't exist' for a major telecomms company. they have a danger-word blacklist that is brought up. not the same thing as indiscriminately saving all photos, videos, website log-in info, etc. our intelligence services don't have the resources and, frankly, with the ECHR, they never will. as for the police's involvement... i have first-hand experience of this, and know that the police are even more resource strapped than the state-level services and bureaucracy. no police force at any level has the time, effort, money, or inclination to sift through your average street drug-users or online bullies phone texts. just doesn't happen.
and yes aussie, everyone knows this is from the patriot act. nobody is saying this is new. just a new scoop on the extent of it nowadays - i.e. complete and total surveillance, at a whim, with no guilt or reasonable suspicion. also if you want to be technically historical about it, obama stressed the reauthorization of the patriot act and signed off on a load of measures that made it even more draconian. obama has rolled over on his democratic principles time and time again on this count (just like with drones). so yes, i don't really want to make this a partisan thing.
and medium, you should really look up "negative liberty". it's a concept that's pretty important to western liberal democracies. to everyone saying "why should i be worried if i don't do anything wrong?", that is badly misreading what liberalism is all about. you are giving the state far too much power. if they came around and said they were going to install a camera in every single one of your home's rooms, but "don't worry, it'll only go off if you do something wrong", would you be comfortable? that's a very odd definition of 'freedom'.
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-06-07 01:35:02)