# Question for the English
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 9, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091 "2017-04-09T01:03:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@anomalous1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anomalous1)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/1 "2017-04-09T01:03:30Z")
I have read a little about the new regulations, laws and rules in the U.K. and am curious. With all of the cameras (traffic, surveillance and otherwise) and monitoring equipment around, as well as terrorism laws and internet regulations/monitoring, do you feel as if your government is encroaching on your rights fast? Do you feel as if they are abusing their powers? How do you feel personally about the situation. Were these laws enacted due to vote? What is the general consensus for the English population.
My perception is a little skewed being an American, I personally hold all privacy to the highest regard, I am just curious about how the English perceive the situation.
Sorry mods if this encroaches into IMHO territory.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/2 "2017-04-09T02:29:39Z")
Do you want people from the whole of the UK to answer, or are you only interested in the views of English people? Your OP isn’t clear on the matter.
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### Author:  [@anomalous1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anomalous1)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/3 "2017-04-09T02:37:51Z")
The English. I’m assuming it starts with the English government, then spreads out from there.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/4 "2017-04-09T02:41:13Z")
> [@anomalous1](#):
>
> The English. I’m assuming it starts with the English government, then spreads out from there.
Oh. OK.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/5 "2017-04-09T02:54:06Z")
Since the OP is asking for personal opinions, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
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### Author:  [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/6 "2017-04-09T03:06:20Z")
Much of it is overdone, and I mostly object to stuff connected to the Internet; thanks to Edward Snowden at the very least a lot of information is available to the intelligence services of the USA and Great Britain.
As for the camera surveillance, most of the time it just isn’t there. Mostly speed cameras on bigger roads and in towns to catch things like fights ( as evidence after ) or youths gathering outside a shop. Maybe annoying, but you’re gonna be seen out in public anyway by other people.
There are certainly no cameras in ordinary streets or in the village I live; and once you’re indoors there’s no way they can spy. It would not be economic for them to use the Obama surveillance gadgetry on ordinary people, nor any benefit.
And dull enough to make the watchers suicide themselves.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/7 "2017-04-09T03:19:53Z")
> [@anomalous1](#):
>
> The English. I’m assuming it starts with the English government, then spreads out from there.
There is no English government. There is a British government.
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/8 "2017-04-09T09:04:40Z")
Frankly most people are ambivalent. When we see on cop shows, how they can be directed to troublemakers outside a club before it gets out of hand we like them. When we think about how it is hard to go anywhere much without being recorded, we might worry a little.
In fact, since everyone and his dog has a video camera in his pocket these days; since most of our monetary transactions are electronic and therefore traceable, and since a lot of us have CCTV monitors on our houses to deter thieves, it is nonsense to object to official surveillance.
As I understand it, most Americans have a personal tracking device that they bought at their own (considerable) expense and insist on carrying around at all times.
It’s the modern world - get used to it.
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/9 "2017-04-09T12:45:08Z")
The vast majority of people don’t give it a thought. It seems to me the important point is what is done with information: that is when any damage to privacy or other rights occurs. I don’t know how you write your data protection laws, but in the UK anyone holding data is required to register who they are, what sort of information they’re keeping and why, to supply a copy of whatever data they have on someone to that person on request and to correct it if faulty. Which is why, for example, you should see notices where there is CCTV, telling you who’s operating it and how you can contact them.
The problem comes with the collection and protection of information for criminal investigation, what sort of controls, by way of judicial inspection, warrants, and so on, there are, and whether one can have confidence in them that surveillance and investigation will be appropriately limited to purpose, rather than just extensive fishing operations, and will be based on intelligent common sense judgments, rather than, say, automatic judgments based on trigger words taken out of context. The mere fact of information being retained for possible availability to the authorities isn’t the point, for me. And it is possible (still, unless Mrs. May revives her old desire to get rid of it) to make a case under the Human Rights Act that any given piece of legislation, or its application, is a breach of some basic human right.
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### Author:  [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/10 "2017-04-09T18:54:22Z")
> [@anomalous1](#):
>
> I have read a little about the new regulations, laws and rules in the U.K. and am curious. With all of the cameras (traffic, surveillance and otherwise) and monitoring equipment around, as well as terrorism laws and internet regulations/monitoring, do you feel as if your government is encroaching on your rights fast? Do you feel as if they are abusing their powers? How do you feel personally about the situation. Were these laws enacted due to vote? What is the general consensus for the English population.
>
> My perception is a little skewed being an American, I personally hold all privacy to the highest regard, I am just curious about how the English perceive the situation.
As I understand it the American government spies on all communications, the American police have devices that track phones, and they reserve the right to search peoples cars and confiscate any money they find in them. Not to mention making everyone register to potentially be conscripted, having the death penalty and reserving the right to execute citizens on foreign soil with flying robots.
I’m not sure that compares to a few CCTV cameras and an opt-in programme for porn.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/11 "2017-04-09T18:58:13Z")
By “a few CCTV cameras” are you referring to the four million surveillance cameras in the UK (half a million in London alone)?
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### Author:  [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/12 "2017-04-10T01:17:40Z")
> [@anomalous1](#):
>
> My perception is a little skewed being an American, I personally hold all privacy to the highest regard,
> [@blindboyard](#):
>
> As I understand it the American government spies on all communications, the American police have devices that track phones, and they reserve the right to search peoples cars and confiscate any money they find in them. Not to mention making everyone register to potentially be conscripted, having the death penalty and reserving the right to execute citizens on foreign soil with flying robots.
>
> I’m not sure that compares to a few CCTV cameras and an opt-in programme for porn.
Not to mention a USA political system that penalizes not registering your political affinity, The Right to Financial Privacy Act which took away all right to financial privacy in the US, Terry Stops, The US Patriot Act, and publication of sex offenders information. :dubious:
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/13 "2017-04-10T03:35:19Z")
I thought this thread was going to be:
“Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?”
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### Author:  [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/14 "2017-04-10T07:45:36Z")
> [@Isamu](#):
>
> Not to mention a USA political system that penalizes not registering your political affinity, The Right to Financial Privacy Act which took away all right to financial privacy in the US, Terry Stops, The US Patriot Act, and publication of sex offenders information. :dubious:
Correction - it was the Patriot Act that specifically took away financial privacy, not the Right to Financial Privacy Act.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/15 "2017-04-10T08:26:05Z")
> [@anomalous1](#):
>
> My perception is a little skewed being an American, I personally hold all privacy to the highest regard, I am just curious about how the English perceive the situation.
I’d be far more concerned about some of the privacy issues in the US (Patriot Act, removal of Online Privacy Protections, the sale of your medical records) than I am about a form of monitoring easily circumvented using a baseball cap and a hooded top.
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### Author:  [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/16 "2017-04-10T09:08:52Z")
Article I glanced at when originally answering:
**[Is government spying on Americans excessive ?](http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2013083000)**
Very long, with several seeming endings, but worth reading.
By now it is generally accepted Obama cemented the universal surveillance state in America. Americans just don’t know it.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/17 "2017-04-10T10:35:49Z")
> [@anomalous1](#):
>
> I have read a little about the new regulations, laws and rules in the U.K. and am curious. With all of the cameras (traffic, surveillance and otherwise) and monitoring equipment around, as well as terrorism laws and internet regulations/monitoring, do you feel as if your government is encroaching on your rights fast? Do you feel as if they are abusing their powers? How do you feel personally about the situation.
Honestly, I don’t give it much thought. It’s just part of the background. I feel as though telemarketers intrude upon my privacy in a more tangible and upsetting way than anything the government does with CCTV or other monitoring.
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/18 "2017-04-10T11:08:18Z")
The us gov just made it aok for your isp to sell your browsing history, so I can’t t really see red light and cc cameras being the bigger issue, to be honest.
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### Author:  [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/19 "2017-04-10T16:33:53Z")
> [@Isamu](#):
>
> Not to mention a USA political system that penalizes not registering your political affinity, The Right to Financial Privacy Act which took away all right to financial privacy in the US, Terry Stops, The US Patriot Act, and publication of sex offenders information. :dubious:
??? I’m nearly 57 years old, I’ve never registered a political affinity, and I’ve never been penalized for it.
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### Author:  [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2017, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-the-english/784091/20 "2017-04-10T19:25:51Z")
> [@elbows](#):
>
> The us gov just made it aok for your isp to sell your browsing history, so I can’t t really see red light and cc cameras being the bigger issue, to be honest.
There have never been any laws preventing an ISP (or any other internet info gatherers) from selling user browsing info. The EO issued by Trump stopped the FCC rules from taking effect. Here is a [good, unbiased article](http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-fcc-privacy-rules-repeal-explained-2017-4/#so-in-many-ways-this-whole-thing-was-a-question-of-default-settings-8) on a rather complicated issue that many are trying to boil down to a sound bite.
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