This argument has gone on since electronic communications became common place.

Read a book by Dan Brown called Digital Fortress... fantastic novel.

Think of it this way if someone had an uncrackable means of communication and terrorists got it, how would any service monitoring terrorism FBI, MI5 etc be able to follow their movements and plans.

Pseudonym mentioned the cost of fighting terrorism. My families life is priceless.
how much is anyones families lives worth?

I dont mind the cost if it saves one life be it from terrorism or stops abuse from pedophiles then every penny is well spent.

What about the thousands of people that are dying every day that they are doing nothing to try and stop? (That link Pseudonym posted has some great 'lets put this in perspective' figures).

Dan

I do think that, at this stage, the money could be better spent. I do agree, monitoring terrorism is a vital process BUT... statistically, sat here in a room of colleagues, am i more likely to be victim of a terrorism attack or, for example, swine flu.

If there we're evidence of an increase in risk of attack then fine but at the moment, I think theyre just using it as an excuse.

Think of it this way if someone had an uncrackable means of communication and terrorists got it, how would any service monitoring terrorism FBI, MI5 etc be able to follow their movements and plans.

Pseudonym mentioned the cost of fighting terrorism. My families life is priceless.
how much is anyones families lives worth?

I dont mind the cost if it saves one life be it from terrorism or stops abuse from pedophiles then every penny is well spent.

Couldn't agree more with you guys!

Look at the London bombings back in 2005. After these bombings, the government, and the security agencies, came under harsh criticism for not doing enough to prevent the bombings. It's a case of you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't! We do need measures in place to make the life of the terrorist and criminal that much harder, and if it means that records are kept of what I do electronically, then so be it as far as I am concerned.

Cost cannot become an issue in my eyes, as how would you like to explain to the victims and their families of any future attack that this attack could have been prevented, but it wasn't because we had to quantify in ££'s, how much it was worth to prevent attacks? It isn't just terrorists that these new laws are aimed at though, it's paedophiles, organised crime syndicates and just about every other form fo low life scum that utilises electronic comms.

I grew up in and around army camps until my early teens in the 70's and early 80's, as my Dad was in the Army. We had to live with the threat of the IRA every day. So to a lesser extent than my Dad, I knew how it felt to be a potential target, and it wasn't nice. Every time there was the threat of an attack, or there had been an attack, it was scary times indeed.

This was in a time when the intelligence agencies and police were reliant on informants for the information gathering, which has never been reliable at the best of times. Now we have the means to combat terrorists and criminals in a more effective way, and I say bring it on! I don't feel like I am restricted in what I do, who I talk to, or what I say, because I act within the law. If I was a criminal or a terrorist, then maybe I would be worried, but I'm not so I don't.

I'm not making light of the situation; losing a loved one is horrible in any situation, having them murdered by some fanatical scum is worse than most, but it's still a bad use of public money.

Your families' lives are priceless and terrorism is bad, but that doesn't mean you should waste the money that could be used to save them from something far more statistically likely to kill them.
Top ten killers of 2005 (A bit old, but I didn't want to sift through the latest mortality statistics). If you pumped a lot of that money into stem cell research, I would expect you to save many more lives. If you could cure diabetes, you would reclaim almost 10% of the NHS budget (a saving of around 10 billion this year.) Think of how many families that could save.

You are still focusing on the terrorist aspect of this though. There is the fact that criminals can, and are being caught out by electronic eavesdropping and counter measures. The range of crimes is very wide too, from paedophiles, right up to organised crime syndicates. Now when you consider this, is it really a waste of public resources?

Look at the paedophile rings that have been exposed in the past few years, due to our security forces being able to utilise technology to their advantage. What's worrying is that we have probably only scratched the tip of the iceberg, and with more advanced methods, I am sure our security forces would be able to detect and prosecute many more of these scumbags.

Yes the initial cost is going to be very high, but we have to ask ourselves if it will be worth it in the end? As a taxpayer, I wouldn't mind paying a few pence more every week to fund this scheme, because even if it just caught out one paedophile a year, or prevented one terrorist attack every few years, it would be money well spent.

I do agree that there should be more funding available to medical researchers, but the threat from terrorists and criminals is still a pressing one which requires radical solutions.

You are still focusing on the terrorist aspect of this though. There is the fact that criminals can, and are being caught out by electronic eavesdropping and counter measures. The range of crimes is very wide too, from paedophiles, right up to organised crime syndicates. Now when you consider this, is it really a waste of public resources?

Where are we thinking they're intent on poling info about tho ?

Just the fact that "a" communication is being had, or the content of the communication ?

I can send u a brief email that would take Sony 6 months to have any chance of decoding - just a chance, not actually decode it. If ur highly organized with criminal intent, u should be aware of these things.

Or we thinking they're after stupid criminals ?

The other thing being is the data storage required to hold such information without targeting someone 'known'.

I feel without knowing prior that an activity is in place, there isn't a great chance of success.

If they are 'knowing', things are already in place to allow them to get the information they need.

Where are we thinking they're intent on poling info about tho ?

Just the fact that "a" communication is being had, or the content of the communication ?

I can send u a brief email that would take Sony 6 months to have any chance of decoding - just a chance, not actually decode it. If ur highly organized with criminal intent, u should be aware of these things.

Or we thinking they're after stupid criminals ?

The other thing being is the data storage required to hold such information without targeting someone 'known'.

I feel without knowing prior that an activity is in place, there isn't a great chance of success.

If they are 'knowing', things are already in place to allow them to get the information they need.

That 'knowing' bit reminds me of the US war chief doing the "There are known knowns and known unknowns " speech :)

I dunno if this is relevant but when i used to work for the police if we / they took your pc off you weather you like it or not we / they had the tools to find out every thing they needed to know with out you even knowing. as far as the law was concerned you under arrest and they have your pc so they will do what ever they will with it.

All so again weather you like it or not the police can request a court order to trace / tap / ghost /follow your every on line move , your bank accounts and so much more it would make your head dizzy. this has been going on for years ... so this law doesn't change any thing that isn't all ready in place. The only thing it does is make there life more easy and less paper work ...

Did you care before you knew this probably not, do you have any thing to worry about , not relay as they only target people whom have a reason to be targeted.

Does it make the world any safer who the hell knows. Do all these statistics mean any thing .... do they hell .... they are never the whole truth and they are all ways a one sided view ...

Even the police have there own police and would you believe it or not a IT contractor has more right than any bobby on the beat and can access more than people would care to say.

mind you the less ppl know the better to be honest ... because at the end of the day its all scare mongering ...

life goes on and we all have better things to worrier about.

i forgot to add .. most copper's as dumb as **** and couldn't find a crim if they were stood in front of them and the same goes for the CID. The real brains lay with there contractors and the people who you never see.

trust me from first hand experience ... alot of it is just guess work.

The only thing that bothers me is that there is almost a turn coming up on the horizon that comes after a lineup of bad things that are going to happen to the internet as a tool.

From what it used to be, the internet has changed vastly over only the last 10 years. Little steps, little things, lots of frivolous things being stapled to the tool that quite frankly are a waste and a clutter for the information based thing it used to be. (all the illegality stuff mainly being in the background with the majority oblivious) U search for info on something in the past and u'd get quick and easy sources. U do it now and u have to filter through worthless blog sites and sites designed to create html from ur search so u hit them and read the ads - nothing that ur actually looking for.

All these little drm things we've experienced with devices are leading up to something. The curbing of bandwidth, as the infrastructure has not been updated inline with the number of customers.

It will be a sad day and it will come cos frankly not enough people will support those who are trying to stop all these little steps.