UK unveils 'Big Brother' plan: Now they want to snoop on every phone call, email and text message

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Plans for a massive expansion of ‘Big Brother’ state surveillance to cover every phone call, email, text message and internet visit in Britain were unveiled yesterday.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed that storing details of individuals’ communications was vital to prevent further terrorist atrocities.

Activities which will be subject to snooping for the first time include visits to social networking sites such as Facebook, auction sites such as eBay, gaming websites and chatrooms.

Police and security services will not be able to access the precise content but will know each site visited, and to whom and when a phone call, text message or email was sent.

If this sets alarm bells ringing, they could seek a Ministerial warrant to intercept exactly what is being sent, including the content.

The billions of pieces of data are likely to be stored for a year or more. The cost is estimated to be at least £1billion, and could be far higher.

Last night MPs and privacy groups attacked the proposals as 'Stalinist', 'Orwellian' and a reversal of the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

One opponent said: ‘They are making us all suspects.’

A leaked memo written by sources close to the project revealed it was fraught with technical difficulties.

Officials are split between placing the vast amount of data to be collected on a huge central Government database or forcing service providers to store the information, to be accessed on demand.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...xt-message.html

[IAMX 3,055]

HAHAHAHA

I knew it. As soon as I read the topic, it was going to be about terrorism.

It's funny that the guise behind their major expansion of CCTV was terrorism. Now they have built speakers into CCTV's to talk to you to tell you to stop littering or loitering. Now snooping in on your calls. And let me guess? People in the UK are about to bend over for this one too, right?

Edited October 16, 2008 by SRVT

[Heracles 417]

Yeah it is called proactive law enforcement. You may want to look it up some time SVRT.

If someone wants to listen in on your calls they can do so, regardless of any laws in place. Anyway, thanks to the countless idiots who bring these measures into the spot light, I highly doubt the terrorists are going to use these communication means any more. Way to go guys. Now we have absolutely no way of monitoring anyone.

SVRT, what do you have to hide anyway. Why would you be so concerned about a system listening in on your calls. I know I don't have anything t hide so I couldn't care less.

Edited October 16, 2008 by Aficionado

[Eric-Pris 1,606]

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.

[rocks 494]

the police have always had records of every cell phone call made, including who it is to and the coordinates of both parties.

don't read the daily mail! it is full of propaganda for old, poorly educated republicans.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well its the Daily Mail of course and they love to stoke the fires of outrage. That said - this project does put rather a lot of power in the hands of government, and I doubt it would be immune from the usual privacy gaffes we've seen over the last few years.

[Amby 490]

I always thought all those CCTV cameras were kinda creepy

[Heracles 417]

I always thought all those CCTV cameras were kinda creepy

The US needs them.

A lot of them in North / East DC for a start.

[rocks 494]

Well its the Daily Mail of course and they love to stoke the fires of outrage. That said - this project does put rather a lot of power in the hands of government, and I doubt it would be immune from the usual privacy gaffes we've seen over the last few years.

i always thought it was weird that you had to be notified of driving near a speed camera - due to privacy... i like my privacy but that is just stupid.

[Amby 490]

I always thought all those CCTV cameras were kinda creepy

The US needs them.

A lot of them in North / East DC for a start.

I still think they're creepy

[rocks 494]

I always thought all those CCTV cameras were kinda creepy

The US needs them.

A lot of them in North / East DC for a start.

despite the huge volume of cctv cameras in the uk, crime still occurs.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well its the Daily Mail of course and they love to stoke the fires of outrage. That said - this project does put rather a lot of power in the hands of government, and I doubt it would be immune from the usual privacy gaffes we've seen over the last few years.

i always thought it was weird that you had to be notified of driving near a speed camera - due to privacy... i like my privacy but that is just stupid.

Well I think that was partly due to the way some of them were positioned. We had one in my town that was right on transition line where the speed went from 60mph to 40. Pretty much ensured that everyone got a ticket - even if you had started to slow down.

I always thought all those CCTV cameras were kinda creepy

The US needs them.

A lot of them in North / East DC for a start.

despite the huge volume of cctv cameras in the uk, crime still occurs.

We don't have guns for one thing.

[Amby 490]

without guns people just find more creative ways to kill each other. like the samurai sword

[alienlovechild 75]

SVRT, what do you have to hide anyway. Why would you be so concerned about a system listening in on your calls. I know I don't have anything t hide so I couldn't care less.

Are you trying to blow SRVT's secret identity? Someday he's going led a rebellion against snake-handling Christian robots who are plotting to run the planet with Skynet cable and hymn singing.

[Sister Fracas 5]

So who really thinks the terrorists are sitting around reading the Daily Mail and now thinking shucks, gotta come up with a new way of communicating my terrorist activities? Certainly if I've known Big Brother is watching and listening....they know...

But to the "if you've got nothing to hide you shouldn't care" comments....the problem I have with that is when you get a leader who will go too far and put everyone on the suspicion list based on information that really is harmless, innocent, meaningless...etc. Then what?

Edited October 16, 2008 by Sister Fracas