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0 pointsalephnerd11mo ago0 comments

I'm not sure it can be attributed to political parties in the UK.

By most standards, the British political tradition has remained paternalistic in it's mindset, and a lot of the shifts in civil liberties happened fairly late (1980s-90s) and without the requisite judicial scaffolding being built in place.

Furthermore, a lot of the same powers and institutions used for internal security during the Troubles were redeployed during the GWOT and never pushed back against legally speaking.

For example, London was the first major city to deploy centralized CCTV surveillance en masse.

And this isn't a UK only thing - across Europe, mass surveillance laws and government perogative are much stronger than their equivalents in the US, and given tensions on the eastern border of EU+ due to a belligerent neighbor like Russia and Azerbaijan using grey zone tactics, I think we might see a further regression on this front, because NatSec will always trump liberties.

By most standards, we're in an interregnum period similar to the 1930s, the "Dreadnought Wars" (1906-1914), or the 1950s that can spill over.

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skippyboxedhero11mo ago

Yes, the Troubles are a huge factor, the security services play a huge and unwelcome part in our political process. I think I mentioned elsewhere, I assume most people are familiar with this but most of the media campaigns that accompany legislation are pushed by the police/security services.

Online Safety Act was an example, there was a massive media campaign over multiple years. I believe the case that caused it happened nearly ten years ago now, it went quiet for years and then suddenly sparked back up again, parents put out in front of the media...every time.

And it is a legacy of things like the Troubles where you have massive internal political instability and these kind of things become normal. These powers aren't formal though, it is all informal. If we are talking about Europe, you see the same thing in Germany (to an extent, in Germany there is a paranoia about political parties, different but historical context).

alephnerdOP11mo ago

> Online Safety Act was an example, there was a massive media campaign over multiple years. I believe the case that caused it happened nearly ten years ago now, it went quiet for years and then suddenly sparked back up again, parents put out in front of the media...every time.

That's actually a bit of a dumber story than that.

Basically, a well connected and knighted documentary maker (Beeban Kidron) made pornography regulation her sole personal mission after she became a mother.

The UK being a fairly small political playground and her significant network thanks to Miramax made it easy for her to lobby and get private and public support in the UK and California.

Once she was inducted in the House of Lords in 2012, she went gung ho lobbying for it.

> informal. If we are talking about Europe, you see the same thing in Germany (to an extent, in Germany there is a paranoia about political parties, different but historical context).

Yep. A lot of the Cold War era rules and regulations remain in place

AStonesThrow11mo ago

Sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking when I said
I'd like to smash every tooth in your head.
Sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking when I said
By rights, you should be bludgeoned in your bed.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=u-JDl5IeDIY&si=9ibHizB9IqD...

ethbr111mo ago

A big part of this is caused by (as I understand it, open to correction!) the UK's fundamental lack of free speech rights (by individuals and groups).

The UK has free(ish) speech, that usually works well enough in practice, for most things.

But at the end of the day if the UK government and/or security services and/or wealthy people want to really put their foot on suppressing speech... they have legal tools to do so.

The UK has never really squared the circle on free speech even and especially when it's inconvenient to power.

That's a binary right. Either you have it, or you don't.

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