Yet more evidence emerges of our privacy being invaded and the ever-growing power of our Surveillance State. Where does the law stand on this?

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fake-mobile-p ... =1#xeQXUAq

Just been reading about this on another site.

I have no issue with this if it helps them track and catch criminals

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Lets be careful out there !

It sounds to me as though it's unregulated and its open to abuse by crime and terrorists which is rather disturbing!

NO i dont want to be spied on , on my phone or PC , PC stands for personal computer , unless i am part of a specific crime investigation , and sanctioned by a high judge , for a limited time , and deleted , after the case .

I personally think the whole terrorist threat is blown up out of all proportion to soften the public up for all this snooping. I think a lot of it is fake.

I can't agree with you there Jon I am afraid as I believe the threat is real and growing.

Encrypted communications are making life difficult for those whose job it is to protect us, and the Anderson report that's been published today must be acted upon immediately to further safeguard the UK. It just is not right that those who wish harm to us can find shadows in world communications in which to hide and plan.

Why should we even begin to trust the 'authorities' when they give us more than sufficient reason to question their integrity?

The law-makers, MPs, have consistently shown themselves to be somewhat less than honest, as their expenses scandal so clearly demonstrated. Brown envelopes for questions have cast very serious doubts over who the political class actually works for. Ex-ministers benefiting from huge financial rewards after leaving office and landing powerfully influential positions should cause us to question the real motives of the political class.

Very serious indications of cover-ups of paedophilia within the Establishment are never properly investigated or brought to trial: we are effectively told to “move along, nothing to see here”. Mislaid police and government files on paedophilia, lost files, inadvertently destroyed files, cancelled police investigations, failure to investigate reported crimes – and even victims of child sex abuse being locked up in private-run-for profit HM Prisons without trial do nothing to cause any rational person to trust the police, the justice system, Government, nor any part of the Establishment. Any responsible Government with the well-being of the nation at the core of its concerns would take immediate and powerful action to clean up the system. But we see no effective political action being taken to clean up the system.

Failures of the police to properly investigate claims of paedophilia within the Establishment and the upper ranks of the police themselves does absolutely nothing to engender trust in the police, nor in the Establishment.

The wide spread influence of the political 'charity' Common Purpose over the whole of the Establishment, the world of politics, the police, local government, the education system; in fact the whole of our national life is now dominated by this so-called charity whose over-riding policy is to train people to operate “beyond authority”. Those words “beyond authority” really ought to have all of us demanding serious answers to very serious questions from the political class.

Secret courts, and family courts that operate behind closed doors ought to concern anybody who is interested in seeing real justice done in the courts.

Public enquiries, such as the Chilcot Inquiry, that fail to publish their findings in full do nothing to create public trust in any of the Establishment.

A political class that has persistently practiced deceit and lies for the decades since the end of WWII over Britain's membership of the EU should totally destroy any trust in the political system being operated against us.

The wilful destruction of the British Military by the political class, including Cameron's dodgy 'Conservative Party', positively tells us that the political class most definitely do not have our national security in the forefront of their minds, nor are they worthy of our trust. Any government that is not prepared to positively protect the sovereign nation of its people is neglecting its fundamental and primary reason for being in government. But we see a political class that is thoroughly determined and pushing ahead in great haste towards globalisation that is heading towards a dictatorial one-world government where nationalism and national boarders are redundant.

We see our national and military defences being deliberately weakened and undermined. At the same time we see huge resources being poured into spying on the ordinary people by the State. A State that is more scared of it's people than it is of foreign agents at the EU, UN, and unrestricted immigrants from across the whole globe, is declaring its true nature of taking us into an undemocratic globalised one-world government.

So I agree with Jon; I strongly believe the so-called terrorist threat is largely artificially manufactured and unfounded. I even go as far as to suggest that the real terrorists are those who claim to represent us and supposedly protect us. If there was a genuine terrorist threat then any responsible government would close and strictly control our national borders against any and all probable threats; but we only see every apparent waif and stray from across the globe being welcomed into Britain against the wishes of the British people - who are never consulted on anything of real significance.

I just don't trust our goverments. They've proved they're willing to engage in deception on a massive scale to frighten the population to achieve their ends.

Here's one tiny example. They persist with hugely damaging and costly extreme green policies to allegedly fix the climate yet it's an undisputed fact that termites alone produce TEN TIMES the so called greenhouse gases of ALL human activity on earth.

Wetlands produce 58% of global methane emissions yet greenies want more wetlands!

The elite want mass control and mass surveillance and will do and say anything to get it.

They're playing a long game to achieve the end of nations and democracies.

I can't blame anyone for not trusting governments, MPs, large corporations and banks. I have no doubt that we are being lied to about a range of matters from global warming to food additives and 1001 other matters.

The sex scandals, the cover ups and the UK's conduct in some parts of the world (including Guantanamo bay) are appalling - and do unpick our trust on a daily basis.

But all of that is a distraction from this subject as the threat from those who wish to harm the UK and its population is real and significant. The secrecy & technical eavesdropping involved in preventing that harm, often appears to go against UK values of freedom, openness and democracy. But there is a reason why MI5 dont do open days or allow fly-on-the-wall documentaries, and that's obviously because allowing too much knowledge of what, how and where they do their work would weaken their ability to protect.

I know the atmosphere on this site is generally one of suspicion to the point of paranoia so there will be posts following this one disagreeing with my views - sometimes strongly disagreeing. And there's the point. We have freedom of expression, a right to air our views. If the groups and individuals who are being monitored, tracked down and disrupted by the security agencies had their way - there'd be no web, no TV and strictly controlled expression of views (punishable by stoning).

So go ahead and disagree with me. Call me names, and call me a fool. While you are doing so, just spare a thought for those who maintain your right to do so

I wouldn't call you names and I hope nobody else would. Not so long ago I would have agreed with you 100%. But I have indeed become very suspicious and for very good reason. For a start, so much about the 9/11 attacks just doesn't ring true and I felt that from the day I watched it happening live on TV.

Then there's all the very well documented clandestine activities our elites engage in from Bilderberg on this side of the Atlantic to its equivalents in the US.

The EU project has been a tissue of deception from the very beginning and has cost us our fishing industry, our independence and billions in exports to the outside world. I'm also lately coming to the view that the destruction of our once mighty motor industry was planned. I could elaborate on that.

As for our freedom of expression, that is under attack and being eroded in a manner which would have seemed inconceivable up until at least the late 80s.

People are already losing their jobs and others are prosecuted or threatened with prosecution for example simply for expressing Christian beliefs that in my own lifetime were enshrined in law.

I imagine 20, 30, 40 years from now it will be a lot worse. The wrong view expressed in private correspondence or in a private phone call could lead to a knock on the door.

There have already been calls from EU politicians for climate change denial to be viewed as a form of terrorism!