Notices by Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie), page 2

*Looks Around*

I, um, don’t know what that might be today.

Maybe the Minister will explain it?

It feels like something the Oireachtas should know about if it has occurred.

In order for the Minister to form that opinion, she is obliged by Section 3A(2) inserted into the old 2011 Act by this slightly TRIS- tarnished 2022 Act to do a lot of analysis.

She has to consider if mass surveillance of the population’s internet and mobile data is necessary. And *even if she thinks it is necessary* she has to weigh it against the intervention into the rights and freedoms of every single internet and mobile user in the country.

If you would like to help, please can you

1) Boost this thread?
2) Contact *your* local TD. This is especially important if you have a Green Party TD. The Green Party blocked the insertion of facial recognition tech into a recent bill. They are open to hearing your concerns.

But any and all TD contacts by their voters are invaluable.

Contact details: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/

As predicted by @tjmcintyre in Mary Carolan’s Irish Times Page 1 story last Friday, the Department of Justice went in before the High Court today and applied for an order to surveil the whole population by mass retention of traffic (internet) and location (mobile) data.

The hearing of the application was in secret (‘In Camera’) and nobody else was told about it (‘ex parte’).

The Court granted the Dept’s uncontested application.

https://twitter.com/tjmcintyre/status/1673419718667956243?s=46&t=a9PpjfJKqt6UQE_nXQlsDQ

I have been grousing this week about the One Big Thing I miss about Twitter (it’s Quote Tweets).

But I also think it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on how fortunate we all were that Mastodon had been built (both as a software and a pre-existing set of communities) so it was there when we all needed to get off the burning ship.

And, as an extra stroke of luck, those communities were generally ready to welcome us in.

It wasn’t a given.

But the truly astonishing part is that this place isn’t just a like for like swap. It’s not just nu-Twitter but run by a competent billionaire instead of yer man.

This place is something old, something new, something borrowed… it’s literally an idea of shared spaces running contrary to the entire abusive model of the commercial internet for the last twenty years.

There. Are. No. Ads.