ATTENTION!! Next time you're in London just DON'T TALK IN PUBLIC!!!

[Andre II]

In the US they might take your laptop in London you better shut the fuck up:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1041011/MI5-launch-spy-sky-UK-manhunt-British-Taliban-fought-Afghanistan.html

"MI5 is using a fleet of sophisticated surveillance aircraft to search for unidentified Britons who fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan

(...) Planes with eavesdropping equipment are now flying over British cities searching for returning Afghan fighters.

They are attempting to identify suspects using ‘voice prints’ of fighters with British accents picked up by RAF Nimrod spy planes monitoring Taliban battlefield radio signals.

(...)

Whitehall sources have never officially confirmed that the three Britten-Norman Islander aircraft based at RAF Northolt in West London are being used for covert surveillance by MI5."

Anybody who thinks this is getting f***ing tooo crazy?

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. OK this is the Daily Mail

and the article is maddeningly vague so I take it with a grain of salt. This sounds as crazy as the French oil-sniffing plane scandal of the early 80s. Could someone explain how this is supposed to work?

[moggie]

2. It's the Daily Mail

Not that I don't believe that our government is capable of maddeningly stupid and authoritarian measures. But if the Daily Mail reported that fire is hot, I'd have to light a match to check. They exaggerate and just plain make stuff up, all the time. This story is perfect Daily Mail fodder, combining two of their favourite themes: "the Labour government are turning the UK into a police state!!11!" and "scary brown people want to kill you!!!111!".

[Andre II]

3. Don't know

but in the light of many othe reports (also in the US and the EU) this doesn't sound neither far fetched nor technically problematic:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/6676809.stm

[LeftishBrit]

4. The Daily Mail is f***ing tooo crazy

They are totally sensational; have no concept of the realities of science and technology; and, having done EVERYTHING they could to support the erosion of civil liberties in this country, now shriek about surveillance, as a means of scoring a point against a government that may be slightly ti the left of Genghis Khan!

[Andre II]

6. Not defenfing Daily Mail

I wasn't aware of the problem of the source.
But knowing everything that Big Brother alreday has done (by law) in the UK the OP doesn't seem to be far fetched only consequential in nature.
See post 3.

[Dissent Is Patriotic]

5. I was recently in London...

I was utterly appalled by their extreme Big Brotherism. You were being watched/recorded everywhere...and I mean everywhere. I've never felt so much like I was in a police state all my life.

[Loudmxr]

7. One has to remember in Great Britan free speech is not a right it is a privilige

One also must keep in mind that the neocons hero in Alexander Hamilton who once argued that the powers of the president should be like that of the British monarch. The rest of the states at the Constitutional conventions told him to go f*** himself. B-)

[LeftishBrit]

11. It's not the MONARCH that's the problem here!

Queen Lizzie isn't interested in tapping our phones. Gordon et al are another matter.

It's our version of the Patriot Act.

[dipsydoodle]

8. Private Eye

used to refer to the Daily Mail as the Daily Lie.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. It's electronic eavesdropping

"the aircraft, which can monitor computer and mobile-phone communication and long-wave radios
...
Their equipment and capabilities have never been officially disclosed but they are believed to be able to monitor mobile-phone calls. More recently they have been fitted with equipment capable of picking up signals from wi-fi computer networks."

why they use aircraft for it, I don't know. But yes, assume that mobile-phone calls might get randomly listened to, and that wi-fi networks do too. Assume that in any country.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Agree on that...

I am sure technology exists to tap virtually any kind of phones and I am sure that it does sometimes happen in virtually any country. How often, I wouldn't know - but I'm sure it does.

[gratuitous]

12. Do like the ballplayers do

Carry a baseball mitt at all times. When you need to speak, hold your mitt up to your mouth so no one can read you lips. Speak softly so that only the person you're conversing with can hear what you're saying. That's not too onerous a practice if you really want to keep your conversation private, is it? And if you're not plotting the violent overthrow of the government, then you've got very little, practically nothing to worry about anyway.

Why are you all wearing baseball mitts? What are you plotting? Looks like we need to pass another law and lock you lot away from decent society that knows how to conduct itself.

[MetaTrope]

13. Ridiculous

They've already got Bat Boy working for them!