Why does the government need to mass record phone calls to pick up on a few phones by criminals?

There are well established techniques for bugging / eves dropping that can be used, beside pumping money into listening in on the citizens of the country.

Wouldn't it be far far cheaper, and 100% more effective to hire a few guards to tail these scum 7 days a week, 24 hours a day?

A far cheaper solution is to cast a wide net and let computers pick out the suspicous activity automatically.

This is where I have a major problem - the guards are too lazy to use more targeted surveillance techniques and are lazy about protecting the right to privacy of citizens.

It's not so much that it couldn't be done as it is a case that the software doesn't exist at the moment and to develop it from scratch would be prohibitively expensive.

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My political compass
Economic Left/Right: 0.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.36

Zfone Project Home Page

Free, off-the-shelf software. Encrypts voice and text

Runs on any windows mobile.

The Limerick drug lords aren't stupid. I'm sure they'd have no problem hiring a security consultant for a nice wedge of cash.

True. Especially for An Garda Siochana/Oglaigh na hEireann who buy in technology as opposed to develop it themselves (leave that to the Yanks, British, Israelis, Germans, etc.)

But do you not see my point regarding thick Limerick accents? Software designed to recognise British/American accents just won't work on Limerick drug lords. They might as well be speaking Swahili.

Well the Mafia in Italy just use Skype instead.

It's going to be a rather glorious flushing of hundreds of millions of € and people's liberty down the toilet in the name of spin doctoring.

Whoever came up with this proposal is clearly being lobbied by some US or other international IT security firm and has absolutely no concept of the technology that exists out there.

You might as well listen to sea shells! You'd get as much information.

This kind of technology is a money-making operation and nothing else. An IT company approaches the a typical police force, talks it up, makes millions.

How about actually tackling the problem of why the courts seem quite able to jail someone over an unpaid fine or a TV license or some other petty offense, while we let dangerous criminals evade the system.

This is just headline grabbing crap.

Give the Gardaí some proper resources, i.e. the ones they're actually looking for, not a whole bunch of useless computer systems that will ultimately do nothing other than undermine civil liberty.

Exactly. The Gardai/Army have to be seen to be "moving with the times".

When it comes down to it, they haven't a clue and I wouldn't be surprised if there are back-handers and international junkets left right and centre.

Give the Air Corps a g-suit and they think their state-of-the-art. Give the Garda a semantic search engine and off-the-shelf voice recognition technology and they think they're working in a real-life episode of CSI Miami.

Where in the Bill would any agent of the state have the power to do this?

You've been repeatedly writing here about mass, systemic surveillance without explaining how the Bill makes it possible.

(Hint: it doesn't).

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Romanes eunt domus

In fairness, if the gangsters can't use mobile phones or walkie talkies, won't that seriously hamper how they do business?

I appreciate that the police may come up against a brick wall if the criminals are using Skype-based mobile phones and 3G phones that scramble conversations, but think about it - how will it look for those boys if they are on trial (especially for gang membership - though that charge may be the bigger threat to civil liberties) and are invited to explain why they've gone to such lengths to avoid interception?

Yes, we need to cherish civil rights, but a relative of a witness has been murdered by organised criminals while nominally under Garda protection and across the road from a Garda station.

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Romanes eunt domus

Granted, but laws should not made as a result of knee-jerking.

An environment of panic and urgency is not the time to bring in sweeping changes that undermines people's right to privacy.