Now 'Big Brother' targets Facebook (UK)

[T_i_B]

Source: Independent

Millions of Britons who use social networking sites such as Facebook could soon have their every move monitored by the Government and saved on a "Big Brother" database.

Ministers faced a civil liberties outcry last night over the plans, with accusations of excessive snooping on the private lives of law-abiding citizens.

The idea to police MySpace, Bebo and Facebook comes on top of plans to store information about every phone call, email and internet visit made by everyone in the United Kingdom. Almost half the British population – some 25 million people – are thought to use social networking sites. There are already proposals under a European Union directive – dating back to after the 7 July 2005 bombs – for emails and internet usage to be monitored and added to a planned database to track terror plots.

Mr Brake said: "Plans to monitor our phone and email records threaten to be the most expensive snooper's charter in history. It is deeply worrying that they now intend to monitor social networking sites which contain very sensitive data like sexual orientation, religious beliefs and political views. Given the Government's disastrous record with large IT projects and data security, it is likely that data will leak out of every memory stick, port and disk drive when they start monitoring Facebook, Bebo and MySpace." Isabella Sankey, policy director at Liberty, said: "Even before you throw Facebook and other social networking sites into the mix, the proposed central communications database is a terrifying prospect. It would allow the Government to record every email, text message and phone call and would turn millions of innocent Britons into permanent suspects."




Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/now-big-brother-targets-facebook-1653407.html

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Do they honestly believe that terrorists are going to use Facebook to plan their next attacks? :eyes:

[rpannier]

1. Akhmad has written a new message on your wall...

We're going to blow up the 66 Building Tomorrow make sure you're there about 9ish.
Bring a salad for lunch we're going potluck

[callous taoboy]

2. Have only been using FB for a few weeks, am thinking about dropping out:

I talk on the phone with those I want to stay in touch with. On FB the only "friends" I've found, with a couple of exceptions, are old high school people who I didn't really care for then, and who are still "too cool" to bother with little people like me.

[callous taoboy]

3. I'd be interested to know the pros and cons of FB people here have experienced. eom

[T_i_B]

4. Facebook is good when used properly

It can be misused by some people who just send you all sorts of rubbish though, and I really don't like the new layout.

Still, here''s the DU Facebook group, which is of course one of the better things on there. ;-)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2426871461

[Redwraithvienna]

6. For me the pros are ...

I can stay in contact with a lot of people really easy.

I am living in Austria now, but i have lived in the US and Thailand, so i do have a lot of friends there.

At the same time i know a lot of people (some friends, some aquaintances), from my university time in Austria, who come from all over Europe and some even from places outside.

With FB it really got easy to follow them, and when someone pops a message up that says "Going to Switzerland next month yay!" i can write them and see if we can schedule a get together or something like that.

The Cons are (or is) mainly the app spam. but i kinda blur that out :)

My FB friend adding policy is quite strict though :) I only add friends / people i know, who i had a good time with in the past personally and not just random guys/girls from my live so that i can have xxx friends ... i mean honestly ... a girl i know has 800 friends ... i hardly know so many people

[Locrian]

7. similar

I kinda feel the same way. Put some stuff up, meh. Like you said - most of the "friends" are people from HS or College who I dont really care to have contact with. Most trying to show that they are still "cool" or whatever.

Then there are the business types who buy into it as "gee, now Im just like my 13 yo kid. I must be, like, soooo cool."

[cobalt1999]

14. It's a great way to keep up with friends

We live in a mobile society so, for most of us, many of our friends are out of state or out of the country. It's so simple and easy to share a photo or a status updates.

I love it.

[primavera]

19. It's also a good way to find old friends

Having moved a number of times myself over the years, I'd lost contact with a number of friends from where I grew up, yet ran across a number of them on facebook. Admittedly, that's also a con as well as a pro - I've also run into some people I'd just as soon have left forgotten! :-)

[Seeking Serenity]

21. I love FB

As someone mentioned down-thread, we are a much more mobile society, so people you once knew and liked pull up stakes and leave for greener pastures, a better job, etc. In the past, if one really wanted to keep up with them, it was either by telephone or letter. But, all too often, work-a-day time pressures edged those activities to the margins. E-mail made it a little easier, if you knew (and if they updated) their e-mail addresses.

Facebook allows me to be able to keep up with old friends long forgotten (long forgotten for no better reason than geography). It has, as others have mentioned, allowed me to make connections with old high school acquaintences who, back then, thought I was too odd for their group, but who now, having matured to catch up with me, seem to think that I'm funny and not that bad after all (I get comments like, "Were you always this funny?" and "How did we miss that back then?").

I love FB (although I don't like the fact that they keep changing it every few months or so).

[callous taoboy]

24. It's been cool in the ways mentioned above, but yet

some of the friends I had that I wish were on there are not, and too many of the people who were a part of the "cooler-than-thou" clique are.

Also, I hate this "tweeting" business. Who cares that you are air drying your sheets right now.

[Seeking Serenity]

25. I don't Twitter. That's like Facebook for the ADD set. (n/t)

[Redwraithvienna]

5. Honestly ... yes i do belive that

I also belive that they would use World of Warcraft or any other online game
to plan an attack. Why ? Cause its easy, leaves more or less no trail, its secure,
and the venues to do this are numerouse.

BUT: I also belive that this gives no governement the right to snoop in MY (or anyones) accounts without proof that i (or someone else)
did something criminal.
There are limits. And those limits have to be valued. End of Story. There are not buts and maybes to that.

There have to be other and better ways to stop terrorists, drug smugglers, crime lords, the mafia and who knows who else from doing and preparing their crimes then this.

[JCMach1]

8. Jeesh... if you don't want the info. out there 9(and it is VERY visible on FB)

just don't put it there...

Gay Jihadis who like to date Jewish guys and post about it on FB... you have been warned SOMEBODY (and I'm not saying who) is gonna find out.

[Epiphany4z]

9. LOL I can just imagin all the stupid

info they would have go threw...little green gardens, save the rainforest,flair, bumper-stickers...how much I like coffee,what I put in my garden...blah blah.....it just seems way to cluttered to be of any use..I use FB and for the most part its pretty useless info.....It also seems pretty public...I have no expectation of privacy on it...that being said..I don't thing the gov should be bothering with it...jeeze leave people breath a bit.

[zbdent]

10. Isn't that what ReRushlicans have been enthusiastic about?

[LeftishBrit]

11. 'Do they believe that terrorists are going to use Facebook to plan their next attacks?'

Yes, they probably do. One can't undersestimate the idiocy or our government when it really gets going.

So more opportunity for our lovely government officials to get all our confidential personal data, and then leave it on the train!

[pimpbot]

13. I dont agree with the snooping

But the idea that facebook would be used as a venue for terrorists to colaborate is not far fetched.

[rox63]

12. Another reason why I intend to keep avoiding Facebook, MySpace, etc... n/t

[Uncle Joe]

26. If they do it to social websites I see no reason as to why they wouldn't do it to

political websites and anybody else on the Internet, and if this goes through it would be a travesty to put it mildly.

I see this as nothing but a divide and conquer strategy to dis-empower the people's voice; first they came for the social websites, etc. etc.

[rox63]

27. Facebook and MySpace are a lot bigger than DU

They'll catch a lot more fish with a bigger "net".

[Uncle Joe]

30. Yes, but they're setting a precedent

and I would wager, people on political websites are the ones more likely to run for office at some point in the future if not already.

It's not just D.U. it's all the political websites and for that matter the Internet as a whole.

[cobalt1999]

15. Not so much using Facebook to plan an attack

However, if they have a person they suspect is involved, it would be a method to see who else that person is involved with.

[B3Nut]

16. And they're going to store and warehouse all this data how?

Do they realize how much data they're really dealing with, and how next-to-impossible sifting through it all is going to be? Talk about a colossal waste of hardware, space, and energy running a data center enormous enough to handle this task! They'll be searching haystacks for needles. It sounds more like a "gimme" to the hard disk and tape manufacturers...they'll be filling 800GB LTO tapes left and right...

Once again, politicians display their utter lack of qualification for making legislation concerning technology...it's all over their heads. Leave technology to the technologists please...

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[cobalt1999]

17. Depends on what they are storing

Relationship matrices wouldn't take much.

Besides, storage and data mining very large datasets is common now. Google stores and data mines over 20 petabytes of data PER DAY. Facebook records storage and data mining, by comparison, would be child's play.

[T_i_B]

29. As LeftishBrit said...

You can't put it past the government to lose such data on a train!

Data security has been something of a problem for the British government in recent times.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x22928

[Bragi]

18. Facebook is a CIA project

Big Brother isn't just getting interested in Facebook, Facebook is a project of Big Brother:

<http://albumoftheday.com/facebook/

[happygoluckytoyou]

20. please ignore the implant in your shoulder and the bar code on your forehead...

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. I knew this was coming.

It isn't about national security. It's about prescreening for jobs based on political affiliation.

[crimsonblue]

23. Looks like the only secure means of communication for terrorists

is good old snail mail. Who would've thought that centuries old technology would defeat the purpose of high scale electronic surveillance.

On another note, is the UK obsessed with turning itself into the nightmare world of George Orwell?

[T_i_B]

28. "Is the UK obsessed with turning itself into the nightmare world of George Orwell?"

I think there's a misunderstanding going on here. George Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning but New Labour seems to think that it's an instruction manual. :eyes:

[TrogL]

31. Most of what I've put up on facebook is inaccurate

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

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