[HN Gopher] Britain's spies-for-hire are running wild
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Britain's spies-for-hire are running wild
Author : bingden
Score : 45 points
Date : 2025-07-25 19:13 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.politico.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.politico.eu)
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Competition of Carmichael Industries.
|
| (Just finished a Chuck rewatch)
| mr90210 wrote:
| Irene Demova
| throwawayffffas wrote:
| > [The company] appointed investigative agencies to surveil me,
| initially covertly and then overtly with vehicles and cameras
| placed outside my house.
|
| Isn't that just stalking? Why didn't they just call the cops?
| XorNot wrote:
| I'm guessing because none of it happened. Seriously an
| anonymous client, talking about an anonymous company, hiring
| another anonymous company, stating that a credible professional
| (the senior lawyer) said it was a big issue but not actually
| confirming _with the lawyer_ that they knew of this case and
| had said that?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I was curious about this so I visited ChatGPT and asked if
| there are documented cases in the UK where these things have
| happened, and I was met with a deluge of well-documented
| cases where corporations hired private intelligence firms to
| infiltrate activist groups and surveil critics and ex-
| employees, complete with links to primary and secondary
| sources which I briefly checked out just to make sure it
| wasn't hallucinating. Then it asked me if I wanted a second
| deluge and I declined.
|
| I don't know why people have a mental model of the world that
| is so incompatible with reality that they'll post skeptical
| takes to HN when we live in a world where so much data is
| available at the tip of our fingers.
| XorNot wrote:
| And then you didn't post your prompt, the links you looked
| at or really anything that would mean anyone could
| establish a common basis of reality or determine if actual
| nefarious action was happening.
|
| For example, "infiltrating an organization" is also just
| joining it, which is quite dissimilar to say, stalking if
| all they did was not actually believe in the organization,
| rather the say, menacingly post men and machines outside of
| someone's residence for the purpose of intimidation via
| threat of violence.
|
| Did you find any of that? Specifically in the UK, by
| private investigation organizations, specifically providing
| stalking for hire? Confirmed by more evidence then "well
| someone totally said it happened but we won't say who or by
| who?"
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| Bit of a mess of an article IMHO.
|
| Intelligence agency staff leave their roles, just like anyone
| else does. Unregulated? They're as regulated as the rest of us.
| Then you have the article casting aspersions on them for doing
| so, it must be about money and malign foreign influences. Of
| course foreign states use proxies; so does the UK. Why's that
| even mentioned as if it's implying ex-intel staff are the proxies
| - which as far as I'm aware, they're not?
|
| Should we ban these people from working again, or ensure they
| only flip burgers for the rest of their lives for daring to leave
| the public sector?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I have no idea how regulated "the rest of us are." This brush-
| off does not convince me that private spying is good, or that
| regulations are sufficient to stop it. In fact, the existence
| of an article in Politico makes me strongly suspect this is
| part of a discussion in which someone argues for more
| regulation. Fortunately I don't live in the UK. Unfortunately
| I'm not convinced that is a barrier.
|
| ETA: the argument "what, do you expect these people not to keep
| engaging in work that we traditionally reserve for governments,
| how will they feed their kids?" also leaves me quite cold.
| Maxious wrote:
| US veterans have to seek permission to enter employment or
| invest in companies that do business with foreign governments
| https://dodsoco.ogc.osd.mil/Portals/102/summary_emoluments_c...
|
| Australia introduced a less onerous 1/5/10 year permission
| period but for anybody with "training in military tactics and
| use of software or technology with military applications"
| https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2024-05-07/new-l...
|
| Most famously due to a former US citizen turned Australian
| citizen awaiting extradiction back to the US for allegedly
| training chinese fighter pilots (although this seems to be more
| of an ITAR violation)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Daniel_Duggan
| speedbird wrote:
| Time to reinforce treason legislation.
| criddell wrote:
| High treason in Britain is mostly about attacks on the
| monarchy.
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