[SystemSafety] A thought about recent matters that concern us all

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

Like many, I have been following the recent revelations about US and UK government surveillance of 
electronic communications with interest and considerable worry.

If you are an engineer, you may or may not think this matter concerns you. If you travel into and 
out of the UK frequently, as I must, then you might be somewhat more interested in the reasoning 
behind the detention at LHR last Sunday of an assistant to the Guardian's investigation.

If you don't think this concerns you, I think you may be wrong. I think every professional who has 
access to privileged information has reason to worry about the direction the arguments justifying 
the apprehension are taking.

The Guardian and other sources are covering the bases pretty well, but I haven't seen this argument 
yet, and I think it needs to be in the public domain. I wrote it up: 
http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2013/08/25/detention/

Let me point out that this note specifically concerns the public reasons given by officers of the UK 
government for arbitrary detention in ports in the UK. It does not concern the more general issue of 
electronic surveillance, its extent, its justification or lack of it.

PBL

-- 
Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de