Big Brother alive and well?

[Andy44]

Wow, what is going on in the UK these days? This is kind of scary.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ase-for-phones-calls,-emails-and-web-use.html

Home Office plans to create 'Big brother' database for phones calls, emails and web use

By Andy Bloxham
Last Updated: 7:07AM BST 20/05/2008

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.

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".

(Emphasis mine) It's always "for your protection", of course. Is it a coincidence that George Orwell's "Airstrip One" was the very same island? What do you Brits think of this? Does the public get a say in stuff like this before it becomes permanent?

I know there are people in the U.S. government who would very much like to do the same thing here, but it's not currently politically acceptable (not yet, anyway). They actually tried it a few years ago right after 9/11 with a data-mining project run by former Adm. Poindexter that got shut down by Congress due to public outcry, but it just went underground instead and still lurks in the dim shadows beneath the Pentagon, where they store the Ark.

 

[pilotpercy]

i can see in a few instances where this would be useful, ie counter-terroism and all that jazz but your right is saying that the public will not get a (persuasive) say in this unless there is an outcry. the only reasonable way to deal with this is a refurendum, but lets hope it doesnt get to that stage.

 

[movieman]

What do you Brits think of this?

The rapidly growing police state is one of the reasons why I left Britain last year.

Does the public get a say in stuff like this before it becomes permanent?

Of course not; Britain is run by the unelected Prime Minister of a party that was elected with only 22% of the votes. Worse than that, Scotland has their own Parliament which overrules many of the laws passed in the British Parliament, but that British Parliament is run by a Scotman whose party would have lost the election without Scottish votes.

Which is not to say that the Tories would be much better, but if they were trying to impose such police state measures the left would be rioting in the streets and the mass media would be raising an uproar against them. But because a Labour government is doing this, they're all happy to go along.

The only good news is that Labour have pretty much bankrupted the country again as they did in the 70s, so they probably can't afford to fund all these plans they're making.

 

[Ghostrider]

lurks in the dim shadows beneath the Pentagon, where they store the Ark.

Hm, no. The Ark is in Area 51...

 

[Kunsa]

Ah the wonders of Data Mining.

This does seem to be a natural progression. I can see it happening in every country eventually. We could see it all the way back when the Blue Ribbon was trying to keep the internet freedom of speech. When that much data is available, eventually it will be controlled. whether its to stop the hackers or stop the terrorists, its all a guise to gain control of the population and determine their habits. I will bet my bottom dollar that if this goes ahead, the government will sell this information(without names and private details etc) to the highest bidder before long.. In reality, Terrorists will use ever-increasingly sophisticated encryption techniques that will mean the data collected by the gov't wont be as useful as they anticipated, leaving them little to do but spy on their own non-terrorist-citizens, and crush Freedom in one foul swoop.
I'm all for increased encryption. My e-mails are supposed to be private.

I may as well shut down my e-mail account now as the amount of targetted spam will increase exponentially.

 

[Notebook]

Its not a problem honestly, even if they do manage to collect the data, they won't be able to hang onto it:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7197628.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7104368.stm

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

They attempted the same in Germany, but so far, there is a clear pattern:

1. Government makes suggestion for reducing the freedom and privacy of people.
2. Parliament, which is dominated by the parties of the government applauds and approves it and turns it into a law. (One large step forward to a police state)
3. President grumbles silently, but signs it finally because he would not get reelected otherwise.
4. The opposition or NGOs complain to the constitutional court about the new law.
5. Constitutional court decides months later, that the law is against the constitution and must be changed in many critical points. (A small step back to democracy)


If it goes on like that, we will have the right to die silently in a dark alley in ten years.

Especially problematic: Most successes against terrorism or internet criminality have been done by the old classic police work, which requires manpower and skills. Most large failures against internet criminality instead happened because of the new laws. But instead of making the states pay more for police duty and have more detectives, the federal government attempts every time to create a federal Stasi 2.0.

It is sick. Almost as sick as that we have to pay 1.52€ for one litre of Diesel fuel today on the average, because the USA and China suddenly use more Diesel fuel. Something is feeling wrong about it, and one thing I remember is, that it is nearly impossible to get Diesel fuel in the USA, as even almost all trucks use petrol engines.

 

[willy88]

I'm sure it won't be long until the British government starts requiring mandatory government surveillance equipment in homes and tracking devices implanted in people's skin. :dry:

 

[Andy44]

I'm sure it won't be long until the British government starts requiring mandatory government surveillance equipment in homes and tracking devices implanted in people's skin. :dry:

The idea of implanting chips in people is something I once joked about and disregarded as tinfoil hat stuff. Towards the late 1990s I stopped thinking it was impossible, and I became cynical enough to believe that if it became possible, it would eventually be made mandatory. Now this technology does indeed exist, and has been used in pets and livestock for several years, at least experimentally. I don't think it would be considered paranoid to fear the implementation of such a scheme in the general population, since it is has already been tested in some volunteers and has been considered for use with convicted criminals and military servicemen.

 

[Kunsa]

Yea I remember that.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.02/warwick.html
It would be handy to have medical/credit card/ID info in chips like that, but I can already imagine people hacking other peoples chips for identity theft. Also, the next time you go for a pee, you may not be the only one who knoows about it :blink: