Government proposes internet snooping laws
Privacy may become a thing of the past if the government's plans for a warrantless internet snooping systems go ahead.
Due to be formally unveiled during the Queen's Speech next month, the legislation provides the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) signals intelligence service with the right to monitor all electronic communications activities within the UK.
Under the terms of the legislation, the content of such communications would be stored but theoretically inaccessible without a court-issued warrant. Fine-grained details, including the recipient or sender of text messages or emails, the length of phone calls, the frequency of calls to selected numbers, and a full list of websites visited would, however, be fully accessible at all times without the need for a warrant.
Government officials are downplaying the extent of the legal shift, claiming that such monitoring is necessary in order to keep the populace safe from the spectre of terrorism. 'It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public. We need to take action to maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes,' a Home Office spokesperson explained in a statement to press.
'Communications data includes time, duration and dialling numbers of a phone call, or an email address. It does not include the content of any phone call or email and it is not the intention of Government to make changes to the existing legal basis for the interception of communications,' the spokesperson added.
The proposed monitoring legislation echoes that suggested by the previous Labour government back in 2006, which looked to establish a database recording the details - but not the contents - of all phone calls and emails made or received within the UK. That legislation failed to pass following strong opposition, however - opposition from the self-same political parties now proposing an even more Orwellian monitoring scheme.
Privacy activists are, naturally, up in arms regarding the change. 'Of course the security services should be able to get a warrant to monitor genuine suspects,' said Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group. 'But blanket collection, without suspicion, or powers to compel companies to hand over data on the say-so of a police officer would be very wrong. The saga of complicity between senior police officers and Murdoch's journalists should tell us how vulnerable people's privacy can be. The government should stand by the commitments both parties made before the election to protect our privacy.'
'This is an unprecedented step that will see Britain adopt the same kind of surveillance seen in China and Iran. This is an absolute attack on privacy online and it is far from clear this will actually improve public safety, while adding significant
costs to internet businesses,' added Nick Pickles, director of civil liberties organisation Big Brother Watch. 'If this was such a serious security issue why has the Home Office not ensured these powers were in place before the Olympics?'
Should the coalition government pass the law, we confidently predict rapid growth in the lucrative business of off-shore encrypted VPN tunnels and similar technologies, which would protect communications from government snooping.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyPersonally I have no issue with the idea that the authorities want to know who I'm talking to, all I see here is that the services don't want to be seen to continue to lie about it. Perhaps Nick Pickles is naive enough to think that power, ability and intent all mean the same thing.
As if they would have trouble getting a warrant from a judge for something like that, I don't think so.
The UK will join the US (Patriot Act) in being able to snoop in on it's citizens without a warrant.
LAME.
The same people that opposed the decision before and now puting it forward. They care not for what keeps us safe or what is right.
Just getting one over the oppostion.
You're kidding, right?
Otherwise, do not want, do not want so much it's untrue.
This crap about protecting us from terrorists is getting old now. I bet they wouldn't scrap the system when the next terrorist attack occurs, they'd just step it up even more, by banning the internet or something and blaming it on piracy. :D
SSL is available for less than £10 a month, and to access their logs DOES need a warrant - and if they ave any sense, they simply delete all logs daily.
Not rocket science, but we are talking about spies - people that lose laptops and don't have even the concept of encryption.
A service that allows the authorities to turn on a web cam that may be connected to someone "linked" with anything at all is demeed unsociable.
Further to this, if information is not satisfactory obtained from this inobrusive method, full access to a suspects camera phone shall be expected to be forthcomming.
A further warning in the form of a SMS shall be provided to inform the suspect to charge said phone should further information be required and sufficent power is unavailable for the duration of said required period. A non compliance to not charge said phone shall be a criminal offence.
wrong.
Want to send an email and avoid the to/from monitoring? Just connect to a foreign email server, standard html access, you don't even need encryption. Of course they'll know you've been to the web address but unless they are recording the data flow, which apparently they are not, they'll have no idea of your email address, who you're talking to or what you're saying.
With such a simple loophole, even considering this legislation is a total waste of time and money.
The terrorism excuse is such bullshit, I wish more people would see through it. Any organisation with the resources and motivation to pull off a terrorist attack will not make use of the internet in such a way that it risks compromise to the operation. So I guess 'terrorism' is just an excuse to take a step towards a totalitarian government.
http://action.openrightsgroup.org/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=1422&ea.campaign.id=8227
Public pressure has been successful in the past.
The Tory government will have a list of everyone who visits the Labour Party website. Even if you're not politically active you have to be able to see the sinister potential behind that.
And as the Tory theft of the London Mayoral twitter account has shown, they can't help but abuse these things when the opportunity presents. Not to mention the abuse of previous "anti-terrorist" powers to snoop on dog-walkers and school applicants. The only way to prevent these powers from being abused is to prevent them being granted in the first place.
Signed
They appoint experts to carry out research, then ignore all the evidence because it doesn't fit their moronic view of what they think is right. I'm starting to believe that we could do with removing all the current politicians (one bullet each should do, don't want to waste money now, do we?) and install people who actually know what the hell they are talking about.
Signed.
ditto
Over 13,000 have signed the openrightsgroup petition so far, it'll take the black helicopter squads a while to round all those up for a start.
Irony doesn't even begin to cover the way they seem to think that taking our freedom away and locking it in a vault is the best way to protect that freedom...
It's insidious, pure and simple.
If this does come to pass, I'll look forward to bit-tech's round-up of the best off-shore VPN tunnel services and the like.
Signed and shared. This is such Bull Sh. Why is everything highly intrusive these days deemed an act to stop terrorism? This is intimidation, for political purposes...the very definition of terrorism!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8de2W3rtZsA
Bunch of farking idiots. Not a clue, and will only impinge on minor or casual criminals. Anyone doing anything worthwhile catching sure as heel isn't going to be stopped by this farce.
petition Signed
Sure you can get the websites you want to, but now you are sharing everything you do with the government, who is made up of normal people just like you and I.
They say that it is to project us from terrorists. But the price of the protection is becoming increasingly high. Life would be boring if there were no risks involved. Now we are heading towards a pretty bad place. Where people dont live, they just exist.
No, of course not. Read what I wrote, then think about the role of intelligence services.
Basically, **** parliamentary process, discussion and representation. It's going ahead whatever. I honestly do wonder what UK democracy is.
It's "Yes, Prime Minister", but without a laugh track. :(
Join the dots.
Provided they have just cause and do so via the courts of justice.
Hang on.......isn't that what's in place now?
There is some 6 month law about data, which is an EU directive (if I'm not mistaken)
Sorry folks, this is a fleece that will eventually end up in wrong hands, unlawfully.
I believe this will open doors to interests that are not of good standing, And certainly not law abiding.
And for that reason, I'm against it.
It must be stopped.
PS - Here's a little ditty going out to our younger readers....
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And a worthy cover of the above track....
u6KXgjLqSTg
Just think about what GCHQ's current mandate is... Taken from Wikipedia:
And this, taken from a recruitment website, summarising the role of GCHQ:
The second site may not be as reliable a source, but it does serve to illustrate my point: GCHQ is the home of this country's intelligence gathering operations. Therefore, they must already be monitoring communications. GCHQ was formerly the Government Codes & Ciphers School (GC&CS), which was based at Bletchley Park during WWII. The very same organisation which broke enemy encryption schemes, monitored communications and on D-Day knew the location of all except two of the 58 German divisions on the Western Front. And that was nearly 70 years ago...
It was only in the mid-70's that the world first started to learn just how much Bletchley Park knew during the war, and even now many former staff still feel bound to remain silent. You'd be fooling yourself if you think that "intelligence gathering" operations today do not include the need to monitor domestic communications. *Every* developed nation is gathering intelligence on each other, make no mistake about that, and that will include the need to monitor domestic communications - "enemy" agents don't just operate in their own countries.
That's not to say that I don't think that the appropriate protections or accountabilities should be in place; all I'm saying is that this is probably already happening to at least a small proportion of innocent people.