Monday, January 21, 2008

Government surveillance

Well, the good humour didn't last long.
According to Brenda Power, from March the Irish government are going to keep and store all our personal emails for a period of three years. They say they won't view the content of the emails, just the names of who sends and receives said emails, the size of the emails and the times they are sent or received.
Right to privacy? What might that be?

17 comments:

  1. Let me guess, the innocent have nothing to fear, right?

    So are they going to store all the personal emails of the politicians too?

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  2. You nailed it, it's all about 'fighting terror' (ridiculous expression).
    Sure don't you know politicians NEVER have anything to hide.

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  3. Anonymous10:12 a.m.

    If the reason given is to fight terror aren't they a few years late on that?

    And I suppose they're worried about terrorist attacks bringing Dublin to a standstill and creating gridlock on the streets. Oh wait, they probably don't need to worry about that either.

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  4. Indeed, an over turned truck or the lightest smattering of snow works equally well.

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  5. Anonymous10:30 a.m.

    What good would that do? With people operating off foreign servers etc. Besides that an e-mail address particularly if its a hotmail or gmail and what have you does not really say an awful lot about you. It seems a bit pointless.

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  6. I'm not really sure what good it will do, but it's just another example of Big Brother. I don't send emails of great secret any way-they're normally work related, but I don't like the idea that the Irish government get to keep them and read them- and I'm not buying any tripe that they won't read content. If they didn't read content how would they know what the 'agents of terror' are talking about.

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  7. Anonymous12:54 p.m.

    It’s odd carry on altogether, I operate off a German server so would that not deem my mails German and what about hackers, look at the likes of Limewire, there is always a million other users downloading from your PC. I don’t understand how it would work. There will always be someone able to devise a scam. Most importantly perhaps is the fact that the government don’t have the resources to plough through all those pedo computers they confiscated so they are hardly gonna be able to read all our mails. They may as well have come out and said they were planning on putting Enda and Bertie on “I am Full of Shit get me outta here”. Apparently it’s on Ackle Island somewhere and features them both getting colonics.

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  8. And that is an image that will haunt me for the rest of this day.

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  9. What a bleedin' cheek!

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  10. Quite so, next they'll be tapping our phones and reading our mail.

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  11. delete delete delete....shit what have I been sending oh no....oh wait....nothing....to be honest I assumed there is someone snooping all the time.....paranoid? no, I'm from Belfast.....fuck them all the same....and then someday somebody will lose a briefcase or a laptop or a building and the Irish Star will have copies of all our stuff....mark my words....

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  12. Anonymous2:01 a.m.

    I'm going to spice up my emails just in case anybody's reading mine. They make a poor sort of show at the moment. They need a dark plot and velvet scatter cushions.

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  13. Anonymous5:28 a.m.

    Big mistake, FMC! Listening to Breda Power that is. That woman couldn't get the colour of whitewash right.

    A couple of pints of order and a package of crips:
    - This is an EU directive
    - All member states have been warned they are way overdue in implementing it and liable to fines
    - The Irish government are the only ones actually going ahead
    - The same Irish government are going ahead despite being in the process of challenging it in the European courts
    - It may have to be brought in as a statutory instrument not as legislation i.e. ministerial directive
    - Irish ISPs haven't a clue what they will be obliged to do

    I could go on. Bottom line: This is a mess, but not for the reasons that twat Power thinks it is.

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  14. Does anyone really think the Irish Government will be organised and resourced enough to successfully save every e-mail sent or received in Ireland in a searchable or retrievable format? I laugh at the very suggestion. Ha.
    This is a country that can't build motorways/tunnels/underpasses the right size/shape/dimensions and where the Taoiseach is so inept...well, you get the idea.

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  15. This is impossible to implement. I can think of at least four different ways to access email from a server on a computer on some Godless island far, far away. Unless they monitored every bit and byte coming into every computer in Ireland, then this cannot and will not work.

    I'm phoning Joe Duffy about it.

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  16. That Brenda Power, she's like the Daily Mail, I tune in daily just WAITING to be outraged about something. It's is nearly as good as espresso for clearing the foggy cobwebs of sleep away.

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  17. Anonymous2:08 p.m.

    Ah bugger.

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