Police monitoring

[kayevcee]

Getting a bit political here, hope nobody minds.

Upon reading the Have Your Say section of this BBC news article, I found myself sitting with my jaw on the floor. Almost all the correspondents were coming out in favour of the police listening in on private conversations so long as they're only listening to Bad Guys. The phrase "those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear" was parroted out numerous times without a trace of irony. Voices of opposition were frighteningly few and far between.

What do you think? Are you happy with the status quo, or concerned that we are finally living in that George Orwell novel we were warned about? My feelings on the issue should already be apparent, but I find it impossible to remain unbiased even when asking the question.

-Nick

[rurudyne]

Until we get to listen in on the police, bureaucrats and politicians on a toll free line ("Dial 2 to hear your Congressman's office phone, Dial 3 to hear your Senator's") — because only corrupt officials have anything to hide — I'm rather against 'liberalizing' domestic standards for issuing a warrants to wiretap (the comparable US issue).

[Cullen]

I hate the "those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear" argument. It comes from the same ilk of idiocy as "if you are not with us, you're against us". I don't care if I have nothing to hide - I don't trust that the police or government to responsibly use private information all the time, nor is there any guarantee they would do so in future years. We have already had several high profile losses of personal data due to government incompetance - imagine if that information extended beyond names, addresses and bank details.

Even if such impossible guarantees could be given for the security and use of such data I still wouldn't want the police to be able to listen to my private conversations. The right to privacy is a fundamental human right and I don't think any level of threat of terrorism justifies abandoning that.

[Andy Turnbull]

The only thing that surprises me is that people are acting as if this was such a shocking revelation. A terrorist suspect is having his conversations bugged?! It's been pretty standard procedure for some time now and isn't anything new.

Now I don't think the police should have the powers to listen in willy nilly to all and sundry but does it not fall upon them to monitor a potential threat? If god forbid they had the opportunity to do so and didn't and as a result a terrorist act occurred the general public would be up in arms for what they saw as the police/security services failing to protect them.

Isn't it great that it's not permissable for MP's to be bugged. Considering the levels of greed and corruption shown by some of them it's a nice privilege to have.

Andy

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Well, the fact that phone-tapping can't be used as criminal evidence was one of the excuses for keeping terrorist suspects locked up without charging them. If I had to have one or the other - the police being able to tap phones and use the evidence in prosecutions, or people being locked up indefinitely without being charged, I'd say the former was the lesser of the two evils.

Martin