Originally Posted by drkpower

How does this Bill result in a Police State?
What does a Police State mean to you?
Do you really believe that Ireland is anywhere close to becoming a Police State?
If so, explain why?
If not, why use such inflammatory language?

Originally Posted by perprojustice

As you may, or indeed may not be well aware a country does not become classified as a police state by one law, policy or action so this bill alone does not suggest a Police State.

The use of the term Police State is motivated as a response to the laws, policies and actions of the Government/ Legislators of the country and is used pejoratively to describe the countries concept of the social contract, human rights, and allied matters.

It is accepted that in times of war or in times of a national emergency that the balance that exists between security and freedom of a countries citizens will be tipped in favour of security but in a peaceful democratic country anything other than a large tip towards liberty and freedom may be seen as a slide towards a police state.

There are no definitive standards to apply to the term "police State" However there are accepted observations that are regarded as a slide towards a police state where on a balance or scale any law focused on removing liberty is seen as moving towards a police state, and any law which limits government oversight is seen as moving towards a free state.

I believe that Ireland is sliding towards the recognised "middleground".
England, or rather the United Kingdon of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is recognised as having passed the middleground.

I did a thesis on this.

Originally Posted by drkpower

Hopefully your thesis is stronger on specifics.

Originally Posted by Gruffalo

For this to happen, the Irish Government would have to be able to purchase technology which works. Think e-voting machines. Nothing to fear here.

Originally Posted by perprojustice

It was indeed but at 2am in the morning it would be a bit of a struggle, but I will revisit it and I can assure you that then I will be very specific.

Originally Posted by Factorem

What institute gave you this master's degree?

Originally Posted by Factorem

Under the Surveillance Bill, thousands and thousands of hours of conversations are to be bugged and listened in to, stored indefinitely, and searched through using state-of-the-art semantic search engines. It's like something out of an Orwell novel.

These kinds of laws only impinge on the right to privacy of law-abiding citizens. The scumbags in Limerick will find ways around the surveillance, whilst innocent people get picked out by the automated software systems and their private conversations are listened in on.

How will the speech recognition systems cope with the Limerick knacker accent? If the Moyross locals think their calls are being recorded and stored, they'll speak with even worse knacker accents so the automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems will go haywire. The gardai/army will need to put huge effort into training their systems to recognise Limerick/Dublin knackers and it's unlikely they have the expertise – i.e. it's the innocent people who speak normally are the ones who are going to end up being picked out for saying something slightly “out of the ordinary”. Also, if I'm picked up by one of these algorithms, how long are my private conversations going to be stored on some Garda computer?

Mary McAleese would want to grow a pair and send this bill back to the Supreme Court. I don't want to live in a parnoid surveillance state where everyone is looking over their shoulder all the time. She's made little impact sofar and this would be a chance for her to make some kind of a mark.

The Limerick knackers won't be long getting themselves 3G-enabled phones with a readily available encrypted chat/voice package installed. The Gardai/Army won't be able to do a thing about that unless they've got some quantum computer in the basement of Harcourt Street. Innocent people certainly won't be using counter-surveillance technology.

Then there's those laser microphones that are used by police forces all over the world. If you know the Gardai have the technology, it's not hard to protect yourself against their intrusion.

Originally Posted by Factorem

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.

Originally Posted by Sean-Bhean bhoct

Why are most of the people on this thread ranting on about encryption devices and software to stop the Gardai from listening to your phonecalls/ reading your texts??

Clearly this Bill talks about all kinds of surveillance and not just about phone conversations. The tapping of phone converstations is already provided for under the Postal and Telecommunications Act.

Therefore, this bill provides for more far-reaching types of surveillance - the recording of daily conversations in and around the private residence by use of listening devices but also the use of hidden cameras etc.

Is there anyone here willing to argue on how to use encryption methods for these types of devices?? And don't say something like "the suspects can go around the house whispering!!".

Originally Posted by Libero

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.