Accepting Spying? You Should Not!

Spying has been big news this year thanks to the likes of Edward Snowden, whose leaks have highlighted the extent of Government spying in the US and UK. The massive extent of data collection by agencies on both sides of the Atlantic is mind blowing. In my opinion surveillance on this scale has so far been unjustified, terrorism the usual answer for the US and UK to do anything secret does not really fully explain this vast trawling of data and even the tapping of Angela Merkel and others. I understand that in today's world as in the past countries will spy and need to spy for various reasons. But as the last years has shown oversight of spying is little or nothing and anyone can be a target whether they are a suspect for something or not.

I was scrolling through Facebook the other day and came across a post from a friend of mine, which made me shudder a little and really shows our ambivalence in the UK to spying and spying on us the people.

More than anything it is the last part of the post that worries me the most, "your welcome to listen in on my phone calls or read my emails anytime if you feel it necessary". For me there is ZERO reason for my government or any other to listen or read my private correspondence unless I am already suspected of something. General populous surveillance is not COOL. I suspect the person who wrote this post had in mind terrorism and the fact that the attacks we have had in the UK have been home grown. To some extent I understand his point, however to accept an open ended view to spying on people contradicts the supposed values of our nation. In fact I find the whole post a little contradictory in the sense that he believes in the integrity and uncontrollability of the secret services to conduct spying on as many people as possible to find the few corrupted bad ones, when the last year has shown the secret services have really over stepped the boundaries of what is acceptable. But what is acceptable in the age of the internet? Has this even been debated? What are the levels of oversight? Its all a fuzzy blur to the general public.