(Not satire – it’s the UK today!)
No – not China or Saudi Arabia or Israel.
It’s the UK.
Skype owners Microsoft – in their stated aim of transparency and encouraging civil liberties around the world – have just released figures of which countries have tried to make them release the names of Skype users through court action or official requests.
And top of the league – the UK.
You can see the table for yourself here (click to enlarge):
This comes not long after it was revealed that UK police spent 4 weeks tracking down a housewife who joked about throwing an egg at David Cameron on Facebook.
Now I’m all for our security services doing whatever they can to protect us from terrorism and such like.
But a word of advice to the public school drinking clubs that call themselves MI5 and MI6 as well as the undercover police in the UK who seem to spend most of their time and taxpayers’ money having sex under false pretences with hippies in the name of national security.
If Al-Qaeda-like terrorists are plotting attacks in the UK or elsewhere, they’re not going to be chatting about it with each other on Skype or joking about it with their mates on Facebook. OK?
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Here’s the full report from Microsoft:
2012 Law Enforcement Requests Report
Related articles by Tom Pride:
Satire like Porn? How 3UK are bringing Chinese-style political censorship of web to UK
The government’s allowing our water, gas and electricity to be sold to the Chinese and no-one seems to be noticing
Police raid activist’s home for ‘criminal’ posts on Facebook. China? No – Wales
Alex Salmond Wins Release Of Dissident Pandas From Chinese Government
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You’re right with your finishing comment but,,,understanding that requires an iota of sense, something the Powers in the UK 2013 don’t have!
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Pingback: Guess which country's security services are monitoring Skype more than any other in the world | Welfare, Disability, Politics and People's Right's | Scoop.it
I don’t know about terrorist organisations using Skype but I do know that many people in the Arab spring countries are using twitter and facebook. See http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.fr/
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Yes, but if they got reports that a person (or persons) unknown is (are) plotting to egg the Prime Minister, this is obviously a matter of national security requiring manpower and prioritisation… 🙂
…How come they didn’t manage to protect wealthy Russian emigre Boris Berezovsky?? –Some reports seem to say that MI5 was protecting him, whilst MI6 was doing him in… James Bond should beware the poisoned Martini, methinks… 🙂
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I’d make an obtuse comment but I fear it maybe missileconstrued.
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The black dog barks at the full moon – but only on Tuesday. Wear a white carnation & carry a copy of. The Wheeltappers Gazette.
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You were supposed to post that message on Facebook, not on Tom’s blog! And it’s the Wheelthomper’s Gazette this week. It was Wheeltappers last week.
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