[Stoat]

A few related FR threads:

'Big Brother' warning over Government database that records EVERY phone call and e-mail in Britain

Bluetooth Big Brother uses mobiles and laptops to track thousands of Britons (without their consent)

Now taxman gets the power to turn up unannounced to your home and demand to see tax records (U.K.)

Great Britain New super-cameras will mean no hiding place for drivers who smoke, eat or use a phone

Police hold DNA of 4.5m Britons - adding 1m to database over just 10 months

Big Brother Britain Government and councils to spy on ALL our phones

Great Britain 'Envirocrime' snoops paid £30,000 just to check your rubbish

 

Please say a prayer for the people of Great Britain

 

 

[bajabaja]

Looks like there is a growing market for programs that make emails anonymous and run browsers from a proxy address.

It’s technology and there is always a countermeasure. Brits shouldn’t have to put up with it, but they probably will.

Some will just pay for more privacy, until the government makes encryption and other evasive measures illegal.

[WayneS]

Someone please help me out here: What is the “Council”?

I am not familiar with that term.

[TKDietz]

“Town halls, along with the police, security services, health authorities and other public bodies, will have access to ‘communication’ records of anyone suspected of involvement in even the most minor crime.”

This is coming here too. They'll always say the snooping laws are to protect us against terrorists. Then the government will take a super expansive reading of the new laws and use them to snoop on all sorts of things that don't really have anything to do with terrorism. Some of these cases will make it to the higher courts, but of course they'll be ones involving criminal conduct. The higher courts will okay the government action because it was used to fight crime, drugs, whatever, and from that the government will take an even more expansive reading and push the envelope even further. Eventually the laws will be updated to codify what the courts already allow and of course expand government powers even further. The 4th Amendment will be further watered down. No government intrusion will be considered “unreasonable” because there is some “good” reason fro all of it. It will be for the children, to fight terrorism or drugs, whatever. The net effect will be that we lose just about all protection against unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed in the Constitution.