Posted on 10/01/2007 11:00:09 AM PDT by SubGeniusX
A massive extension of surveillance powers comes into force today, giving police, government officials and even local councils unprecedented access to everyone's telephone records.
Your view: Are the state snooping powers justified? The new regulations will force telecommunications companies to retain information about all landline and mobile calls made by members of the public for one year, and hand over the data to over 650 public bodies and quangos.
advertisementThe move, quietly approved by Parliament in July under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, is being justified as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism.
A Home Office spokesman defended the move, saying that the content of people's calls or text messages was not being read, just the place from where they made the call and to which number.
''We are not intruding into people's private lives," said the spokesman, adding that the move was "part of the difficult balance between protecting people from terrorism and serious crime, and respecting people's human rights".
Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "Once again this Government has been caught red handed creating new surveillance state powers with no meaningful public or parliamentary debate."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Ping
waiting here for the british conservatives to denounce this....... waiting .... waiting ....
don’t hold you breath ...
hell ... there are “Consevatives” right here on this forum that would support this kind of thing in the U.S. ...
Constitution be damned
Hell, I’d be delighted if American conservatives would denounce this, given the decided lack of enthusiasm I observed after the warrantless search provisions of the PATRIOT Act were overturned.
(2) I see no problem with service providers "handing over" this info - the question is: under which circumstances are they to hand it over? With a warrant or not?
Which warrantless search provisions were those?
still waiting ....
Well said. As usual you have hit the nail on the head.
If a warrant is required to gain my records then I can’t say I’ld have a problem with this.
A warrant can be used to look at my bank records and to, you know, enter my freaking house. So my phone records are no big deal.
But if a warrant is NOT required then this would be demented big government-for-its-own-sake snooping.
Further to this: it looks like its not just M15, M16 and the police (with a warrant) who will have access to this data.
Databases of call data which can be read by, say, an Animal Rights “sympathiser” working in local Govt, tracking everyone who rings a certain number (such as the Huntington Research Lab) would enable more terrorist acts than it would prevent. What is HMG thinking?
‘waiting here for the british conservatives to denounce this....... waiting .... waiting ....’
Give us a chance - it’s dinner time here!
I’ll quite happily denounce it for you. I’ll quite happily denounce just about anything foisted upon this country by New Labour since 1997. I thought it went without saying.
sorry to interrupt your tea. and thanks!
What exactly is it you expect to happen on November the 5th this year?
Presumably SGX is putting the finishing touches on an effigy of Benedict XVIth just in time for the holiday.
IT is high time that FreeRepublic steps up and protects the future free communication of children of the once free people of the British Crown.
I know that the eff can come out on various issues that don’t match this site’s perspective, but this is a common cause issue.
http://tor.eff.org/
http://tor.eff.org/docs/tor-doc-server.html.en
If FR gave anonymous virtual tunnels a good publicity drive it could expand further afield...
If FreeRepublic pushed for Freepers to install Tor nodes and volunteer badnwidth such as we have done for Folding@Home, it could have beneficial effects far exceeding that which we are able to do regularly now.
This is not just for the UK, it’s for Chinese dissidents, Burma dissidents, Zimbabwe dissidents, Christians in Canada (well eventually), student activists in Iran, and many other people whom we would find good company with. We sit here day in and day out commenting on the situations abroad as reported by the media organs allowed into repressive regimes due to the media’s cowtowing, here is a easy way for FR to do something to make the voices of those not heard from easier to hear.
IT gets worse:
1. NO longer can use your phone to do banking.
2. NO longer can use your phone to call credit card company.
3. NO longer can use your phone to buy something with a credit card.
4. No longer can you use your phone to call your lover.
5. No longer can you use your phone to talk business. The implications of corporate espionage are so huge I can’t even describe it. Within the UK, it will take just a small handful of corrupt officials with access, to get the scoop on every merger and acquisition of every publicly traded company based in the UK. THIS WILL HAPPEN.
6. NO longer can talk to a medical professional over the phone.
7. No longer can call your lawyer over the phone.
Banking privacy, medical privacy, lawyer-client privilege, privacy to pursue romance, privacy to pursue alternative lifestyles, privacy to maintain business secrets, privacy to maintain over the phone transactions, all are gone with this new scheme.
When the UK brings the internet into this new scheme too, the UK will have a much much stricter police state than Communist China. The UK will have without a doubt the most repressive regime regarding free communication in the world.
Between credit rating agencies, the NHS databases, the lifelong database on all school age children, and this new surveiilance scheme, the UK will be a police run prison state.
I use it in combination w/ Privoxy ... I also have heard good things about JAP ... but I havent tried it yet
No warrant, and no judicial oversight is required or even possible for this new system. Just the Assistant Chief of whatever podunk agency can sign the papers authorising the request. In big cities the Assistant Chiefs will be flooded with requests, watch as cops start stalking ex-lovers and the like using this system, to become regular occurrences in the UK. Watch as special interest agencies start targeted harassment of out of favor private citizens and businesses as a result of this too.
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