UK Email and web use 'to be monitored' under new laws

The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon. Internet firms will be required to give intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications on demand, in real time. The Home Office says the move is key to tackling crime and terrorism, but civil liberties groups have criticised it. Tory MP David Davis called it "an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary people". Attempts by the last Labour government to take similar steps failed after huge opposition, including from the Tories.

What a load of fucking shite. I hope this attempt also "fails after huge opposition", but I get the feeling it's just going to go ahead. :mad:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17576745

Comments

  • chippychippy <b style="color:pink;">Global Moderator</b>
    edited April 2012
    It was exactly the same as 2 years ago:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8020039.stm
    Plan to monitor all internet use

    By Dominic Casciani
    BBC News home affairs reporter


    Social networks: Data recorded - but not content
    Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.
    The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.
    The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.
    The Tories said the Home Office had "buckled under Conservative pressure" in deciding against a giant database.
    Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database.


    But she also said that "doing nothing" in the face of a communications revolution was not an option.
    The Home Office will instead ask communications companies - from internet service providers to mobile phone networks - to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism.

    More and dates on the link above.
  • RemadERemadE Global Moderator
    edited April 2012
    This stuff will always come and go until the Public is too soft and stupid to oppose it.

    Basically a mix of this...



    Either that or it was a fucking annoying April Fools joke
  • edited April 2012
    Either that or it was a fucking annoying April Fools joke

    That's what my Dad said. I hope he was right, although I hope he was wrong as I also tweeted about it which would make me look like a retard :facepalm:
  • Darth BeaverDarth Beaver Meine Ehre heißt Treue
    edited April 2012
    News flash, they are doing this already regardless of the laws in every major western nation.
  • chippychippy <b style="color:pink;">Global Moderator</b>
    edited April 2012
    You know I was thinking that as well. That's how they have been making arrests on the online paedo rings for the past few years.
  • RemadERemadE Global Moderator
    edited April 2012
    Glad I didn't take up that scholarship years back to work for GCHQ.
    Seriously.
  • ArkansanArkansan Regular
    edited April 2012
    Like Darth said this shit is old news, whether its legal is moot at this point, just like over here with the CIA's warrant-less wire tapping program. They got caught and basically everyone shrugged and said oh well, if you want to get good and pissed off pick up this months issue of Wired magazine and read about the NSA's huge new "Data Collection" center out in ass fuck nowhere Utah. I actually ended up in a shouting match with some retard in coffee shop over this, the guy pulled that tired old line that if your not up to anything why do you care.
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