Lets face it: in the end, mass surveillance like this is a tool of terror, not of gaining knowledge. It's about injecting fear into society. And it already starts to work, obviously.
Totally agree. Political action is the only thing that helps here. To all the people in the UK who not agree with that new law: there are many people all over Europe on your side. And if it comes to the need of action in our own countries, we will not hesitate.
There is no technical solution to such a problem. There is only a political solution. Either force government to change politics, or change government.
Some background of why I believe this. I grew up in communist East Germany (GDR) and lived there for 27 years, until - yes - we changed the government. Trying to change politics beforehand was not so successful after all. As you may know or may not know, that state was based to a good extent on the soft terror of broad surveillance. In the 70s and 80s of the last century, to achieve this a lot of human power was needed. Nowadays, surveillance can mostly be based on technology. I'm much concerned - given my life experience - about the trend over the last years to undermine democracy in the name of saving it - all over the (yet) free world. At least I know how a society looks like, that is no longer democratic.
The technical solutions like VPN or whatever are similiar to what we called "inner emigration" back in the past. It was a widespread phenomenon in that society. But only once many people have stopped this kind of hiding, and have publicly stripped off their fear, the system began to tumble. In the end, all the surveillance could not save it. They did know what happened and they could not stop it, simply because the people did not play their game anymore.
That petition mentioned here elsewhere is the right way. Sign it if you are a UK citizen. I'm unfortunately not, but I would do it now.