Posted on 05/20/2008 12:05:46 AM PDT by LibWhacker
The Home Office will create a database to store the details of every phone call made, every email sent and every web page visited by British citizens in the previous year under plans currently under discussion, it has emerged.
The Government wants to create the system to fight terrorism and crime. The police and security services believe it will make it easier to access important data as communications become more complex.
Telecoms firms and internet service providers (ISPs) have already been approached by the Home Office, which would be given customer records if the plans were realised.
The security services and police would then be able to access records for any individual over the previous 12 months by gaining permission through the courts. Article continues advertisement
The plans will raise concern from data protection and civil liberty campaigners and fuel objections to the perceived rise of a "Big Brother" state. There will be worries about the Home Office's ability to safeguard the data from loss or theft, after recent incidents such as when the child benefit information of every family in Britain with a child under 16 were mislaid.
There will also be doubts about its capacity to manage such a large volume of information. About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated three billion emails are sent every day.
Since last October, telecoms companies have been required to keep records of phone calls and text messages for 12 months.
The plans are being considered for inclusion in the draft Communications Bill to be published later this year. They are at an early stage and have yet to be passed to ministers.
A Home Office spokesman said the move was needed to reflect changes in communication that would "increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data and use it to protect the public".
Talk about sleep walking into a police state...
Especially as our ministers are more likely to leak info to the press, mislay important documents or simply sell it to our enemies. Can THEY be trusted with my personal information? Do they need it?
CCTV. ID Cards. Biometric passports. Airline data flogged to the US. And now this?????!!!!!!!
My eyes are wide open thats for sure.
Damned Home Depot. Sticking their noses everywhere.
All those brave men who risked, and gave, their lives during the Battle of Britain......
why did they bother?
Every last mouse click?
You do know that every piece of mail was read by the British during WWII no? It was, that's a fact.
George Orwell was a quarter century early with his title “1984”. The UK is marching toward the world he envisioned. They don’t seem to see it, understand it, or care.
Don’t take my post as justifying this. It is just to point out that the British are not virgins when it comes to this type of thing.
No key word stuff like Echelon? So they’ll end up with all their server memory jammed with “if you don’t send this to 20 friends within the next 2 seconds Jesus will be crucified again” nonsense.
It won’t be used to fight terrorists. It will be used to put innocent people in jail for their opinions against the death cult and the “gay marriage” crowd.
and if the brits are doing it - it wont be long before some jackass suggests it be done here.
I wouldnt be altogether surprised if it already has
and the noose slowly tightens, all without a shot
This CREEPY mania they have to film every movement of their subjects, and examine every detail is scary when compared to the zero protection available to homeowners from burglars, or the zero penalties given to people who murder their subjects just out of idle drunken fun. Looking at the Daily Mail's breaking headlines used to be interesting and educational. Now it's just tragic and depressing.
The ONE bright spot that says England is not dead is the wonderful page about the Radar Revenue cameras. I wish I had saved the URL. Hundreds and hundreds are being destroyed. The method of choice is a petrol-filled tire hung over it, though some explosives have been used. There is hope yet.
Necklacing radar cameras?
Outstanding.
Back in the World War II days, the technology, such as we have today, simply did not exist to impose a totalitarian state.
This technology is what worries me about the threat to civil liberties, privacy, and freedom in the present day, not only in the U.K., but also in the United States.
Of course they have to film everything! The crime rate in the UK is simply atrocious now that they’ve disarmed their citizenry. You’re three times more likely to get shivved in an alley and relieved of your valuables there than here.
Too bad it’s not working.
Too bad it’s not working.
I wonder what they do with all the video? Put it up on U-Tube for laughs?
What creeps. Their "The Prisoner" fantasy has finally come true. Nothing happens to the yobs who are filmed, anyway.
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