BBC News Online: 'Snoop' plans put on hold

[Peter Mitchell]

Andrew Marlow wrote:
> 
> I disagree. What has happened recently with RIPA seems to me to be
> comparable to a tactic used by the US when it wants to pass a bad law.
> It's called the 'good bill-bad bill' tactic. They pass an awful bill then
> propose a watered down version which is still bad. People call it good
> because it is good compared to the other one. What I think we have here is
> a situation in which people are now basically agreeing to the premise of
> RIPA and are now arguing about who should be on the list of people that
> are permitted access to the information. Wholescale snooping, fishing, and
> massive storage of all electronically transmitted information, however
> infeasible it may be to do it, seems to have been accepted by the public,
> thanks to the 'climbdown'.
> 


Absolutely. Exactly the same point occurred to me the instant I saw the
order. It was simply too preposterous to be taken seriously.

Have they really suddenly become so awful, like in the last chapter of
Animal Farm? Or were they always just as bad, but we didn't notice
because we didn't have mailing lists like this one?

--
Pete Mitchell