moar on the fall of Britain to the Communists

local Commissars deploy thought police

EXCLUSIVE

Knock knock, it's the Thought Police: As thousands of criminals go uninvestigated, detectives call on a grandmother. Her crime? She went on Facebook to criticise Labour councillors at the centre of the 'Hope you Die' WhatsApp scandal exposed by the MoS

Published: 22:31, 22 February 2025 | Updated: 02:06, 23 February 2025

In a chilling clampdown on free speech, two police officers pay a visit to a grandmother – simply for criticising Labour politicians on Facebook.

Detectives were last night accused of acting like East Germany's feared Stasi secret police for quizzing Helen Jones over her calls for the resignation of local councillors embroiled in the WhatsApp scandal exposed by The Mail on Sunday.

Police conceded that the 54-year-old had committed no crime – yet Mrs Jones says she has effectively been silenced by the officers.

The response by Greater Manchester Police was also branded a waste of time and scant resources at a time when so many crimes go uninvestigated.

Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith described the police action as 'pathetic' and called them the 'thoughtless thought police', adding: 'It's a waste of police time. It's absurd that they went to speak to her. They should have dismissed it on the spot.'

And Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, said: 'This is typical of the weird authoritarian atmosphere that has grown up in Britain since Sir Keir Starmer took control. Good luck persuading Greater Manchester Police to send two police officers to your house if you're burgled or your car is stolen.'

It is the latest in a string of incidents in which police have investigated people for social media posts, including newspaper columnist Allison Pearson, feminist writer Julie Bindel, and former policeman Harry Miller, whose name was added to a database for his 'non-crime hate incident'. Mr Miller, who founded the Fair Cop campaign group, said of Mrs Jones's treatment: 'It flies in the face of our freedoms and it's wrong. That's far more akin to a European police force – or even worse a Stasi police force.'

The two plain-clothes officers arrived at Mrs Jones's home and demanded to talk to her after she commented on the offensive messages shared in a Labour WhatsApp group that The Mail on Sunday exposed this month. Our story led to the sacking of health minister Andrew Gwynne and the suspension of Burnley MP Oliver Ryan and 11 Labour councillors.

Police knocked on her door in Stockport within 48 hours of receiving a complaint, in contrast to how they have responded to other crime reports. Mrs Jones, a school administrator, said police failed to investigate a spate of car thefts in the surrounding streets last year.

Greater Manchester Police has one of the highest crime rates in Britain and fails to solve almost three out of four shoplifting incidents.

Manchester has the fifth-highest crime rate in England and Wales, with 158 offences for every 1,000 people, according to Home Office data. Police say recorded crime across the region was down by 8 per cent last year .

Shoplifting, however, is surging with 21,890 cases recorded in 2024, of which just 26 per cent were solved – although that was a 7.1 per cent increase on 2023.

Criticising the action against Mrs Jones, senior Tory MP Sir Alec Shelbrooke said: 'This is an a waste of police resources. The Government cannot seriously be saying that they are looking for efficiency in public spending while police officers are taken away from crimes to go and knock on the doors of residents and say, 'You haven't actually committed a crime but we want to have a word'.'

Tameside Tory councillor Liam Billington, who was contacted by Mrs Jones for help last week, said: 'What Labour are now trying to do is control free speech. As a councillor I know I will get things wrong, I am not perfect. But it's a democratic right to be able to criticise your elected officials.'

Sir Iain Duncan Smith added: 'I've had people say they don't want to vote for me and being rude about it – what am I going to do? Report that? That is ludicrous. It's normal and it should be left well alone.'

Moar/Pics/Sauce : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14424959/Knock-knock-Thought-Police-thousands-criminals-uninvestigated-detectives-call-grandmother-crime-went-Facebook-criticise-Labour-councillors-centre-Hope-Die-WhatsApp-scandal-exposed-MoS.html

UK Stasi Snoopers in your iPhones now

Apple removes end-to-end security encryption tool for UK cloud users rather than renege on its privacy commitments to all

UK ministers believe the highest level of encryption prevents law enforcement agencies from catching criminals, including terrorists and paedophiles, but Apple and other tech giants are unwilling to go back on promises made to clients over cloud security.

Gurpreet Narwan

Business and economics correspondent @gurpreetnarwan

Friday 21 February 2025 20:20, UK

Apple's decision to withdraw its most secure cloud storage service from the UK is just the latest turning point in a battle that has been rumbling on between US tech companies and successive British governments for some time.

The dispute centres on end-to-end encryption, a method of secure communication which enables only the sender and receiver to view messages.

Ministers have long argued that the technology, in its current form, is preventing law enforcement agencies from catching criminals, including terrorists and paedophiles.

However, Apple along with its fellow tech companies say they are not prepared to dilute the privacy commitments they have made to all their customers to meet their demands.

Whitehall has been trying to tackle this issue for some time.

Under the Online Safety Act 2023, it attempted to introduce client-side scanning. This would have forced tech companies to scan private messages before they were encrypted.

Meta's WhatsApp and Signal threatened to exit the UK market in response, with the latter saying it would "100% walk". The government later rowed back.

Yvette Cooper's 'Snoopers charter':

Now it has used the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), the so-called 'snoopers charter', to try to force Apple to allow security authorities access to encrypted cloud data, which Apple itself does not view.

Rather than create a backdoor for the government, the tech giant said it would disable Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the UK altogether. This is its most advanced, end-to-end security encryption tool for the cloud.

When using ADP, only account holders can see photos and other documents they have stored on the cloud.

Apple users in UK lose extra security layer

It means Apple is now complying with the law, and in that sense the government has got what it wanted, but it means users in the UK have lost the additional layer of security.

The government believes the approach is necessary. In 2023, the Home Office published guidance, which stated that offences relating to online indecent images of children had increased by 13% over the previous year.

It pointed to a YouGov poll, which suggested that the public support the view that tech companies should develop technology that allows them to identify child sexual abuse in end-to-end encrypted messaging apps.

However, tech companies and security experts say a 'backdoor' isn't possible without undermining security and privacy for all users. Experts have been trying to develop one for the past 30 years, with little success.

Some campaigners back tech firms

It's not just tech companies who are fighting this corner.

When reports of this latest effort first emerged last week, 109 civil society organisations, companies, and cybersecurity experts, published a joint letter to the home secretary Yvette Cooper, which said the demand "jeopardises the security and privacy of millions, undermines the UK tech sector, and sets a dangerous precedent for global cybersecurity".

Campaigners also argue that the move could threaten global privacy rights. Human Rights Watch has described it as a disproportionate and an "alarming overreach".

The group said: "People rely on secure and confidential communications to exercise their rights. Access to device backups is access to your entire phone, and strong encryption to prevent this access should be the norm by default."

In the US, senator Ron Wyden and congressman Andy Biggs condemned the plan, calling it "dangerous" and "short-sighted".

That being said, the US government has previously asked Apple to break its encryption to help with its criminal investigations, with little success.

Apple can appeal the decision but, in taking on major US tech companies, the UK government has a huge fight on its hands.

https://news.sky.com/story/apple-removes-end-to-end-security-encryption-tool-for-uk-cloud-users-rather-than-renege-on-its-privacy-commitments-to-all-13314094