UK's proposed new "security" bill not only allows secret demands for back doors to be built into any software system (back doors that the government assures everyone will only ever be used for the best and most benign purposes, and will never, ever, ever be found or exploited by the Bad Guys), but makes any mention of such back doors, or back door orders, by anyone, to anyone, for any reason — in court, before Parliamentary panels, let alone to the media — punishable by imprisonment.
'It seems that the central purpose of the revamped Snooper's Charter is not so much the claimed tidying-up of existing surveillance powers, nor even the extension of those powers, although it certainly does that too. At the heart of proposed Investigatory Powers Bill is something much more insidious: an attempt to make it impossible for anyone in the know to discuss any details of the government's surveillance activities, ever. As Danezis puts it: "The gagging provisions are a clear example that calls for a mature debate around surveillance are mere rhetoric, the securocrats want one last discussion before making any discussion about surveillance simply impossible.'
This is not, of course, strictly a British thing. The "securocrats" in the US would dearly love to do do much the same. For your safety and mine, of course.
Snooper’s Charter: UK gov’t can demand backdoors, give prison sentences for disclosing them
The new law would prevent any discussion of government surveillance, even in court.
