Total Phone and Email Database Proposed In UK

mishmash writes "The Times of London is reporting a proposal for a massive government database holding details of all phone calls, emails, and time spent on the Internet. This is to be justified as being 'part of the fight against crime and terrorism.' Quoting: 'Internet service providers and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials.' If you want to write to representatives to let them know your views, contact details are available at Write to Them." UK telecoms are already required to keep records of phone calls and text messages for 12 months, accessible by subpoena; the requirement is already slated to expand to records of Internet usage, emails, and VoIP. This new proposal aims to centralize all that information in a single database in the Home Office.

Mr. Orwell!

[IgnoramusMaximus (692000)]

Mr.Orwell! A telephone call for Mr.Orwell ....

Remember, Remember the 5th of whenever!

[Morromist (1207276)]

Nobody seems to hate the concept of terrorism as much as the Brits -

I would like to see us have an Osama Bin ladin day where we burn his effigy to fireworks and general celebration
- and Guy fawkes never actually carried out the gunpowder plot
AND nobody seems to forget the bloody goverment reprisals that have taken place under the guidance of the old Kings and Queens, mostly due to religious differences. here I name but a few:

The rampage of Bloody Bonner during the reign of Queen Mary I

The Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys in the reign of King James II

The repression in Scotland against the highlanders after the first Jacobite rebellions which some historians have called genocide

The Peterloo Massacre in 1819

Have the English forgot all of these thousands of government killings and yet still remember Guy Fawkes who did not manage to kill a single person?
If I were British I would be considerably more afraid of my government than any terrorist.

Re:Remember, Remember the 5th of whenever!

[.deepershade (994429)]

If I were British I would be considerably more afraid of my government than any terrorist. Believe me. I am. And when we raise our concerns, they ignore us and do what they want anyway. Learn this, we are no longer a democracy (rule of the majority), we're a totalitarianistic state. The vote is just something they 'allow' us to have because it appeases the masses. And please don't mod this down unless you actually live in the UK. I WISH this were a flamebait or a troll. I really do.

Re:Remember, Remember the 5th of whenever!

[Zemran (3101)]

The vote is just something they 'allow' us to have because it appeases the masses.

Why do people go on about the vote as if it makes a difference? In China they have had elections for decades and nothing has changed. The party puts forward a few suits to chose between and the people choose a puppet to stand in front of them. In Britain we get to choose between 3 suits and in the US they get to choose between 2... It is a long time since we have been any different to China or Russia.

Russia and China are moving in one direction and becoming more free. The UK and the US are moving in the other direction. Russia has closed its gulags and the US has opened its own...

In a few years we will be different to Russia and China again when they become the representatives or the free world.

Re:Remember, Remember the 5th of whenever!

[dryeo (100693)]

While the Prime Minister is appointed he is the leader of the party that dominates parliament. So in practice the people vote along party lines to get a certain PM.
The power of the house of lords has been curtailed quite a bit over history, especially at the beginning and end of the 20th century.
They can only delay bills, 1 month for monetary bills (new taxes etc) and 2 sessions of parliament or 1 year for other bills.
I believe that much of the opposition against the current police state has actually come from the house of lords.
I personally think that having a second house who's members don't have to worry about reelection to allow delays for second thoughts on legislation is actually a good idea.

Re:Mr. Orwell!

[ductonius (705942)]

Mr.Orwell! A telephone call for Mr.Orwell ....
Maybe something like this.

Loudspeaker: Paging Mr.Orwell. Mr.Orwell to the nearest white courtesy phone.
Orwell: Hmmm... Ok.... Um... there's a sign here that says 'Courtesy Phone', but the phone is black.
Loudspeaker: No, the courtesy phone is white.
Orwell: No, it's black.
Loudspeaker: It's white.
Orwell: It's black. It's the same color as my suit and watchband.
Loudspeaker: I don't know how you could be so mistaken. It's clearly white.
Orwell: How can you not know your black courtesy phones are black?
Loudspeaker: It's white.
Orwell: It's black.
Loudspeaker: Paging the nearest Civil Protection Team. Civil Protection Team to the nearest white courtesy phone.

Re:Mr. Orwell!

[caitsith01 (606117)]

Actually, under this proposal Mr Orwell can be reached by calling pretty much anyone, thanks to the OMNI-CALL system operated by MiniLove.

Simply dial any random number and deliver your message to whoever answers. Give it a little while and the relevant catchwords will be identified and stored in the central database for easy retrieval by unaccountable government drones. 'Correctional' officers will then be dispatched to visit you and 'correct' your views on certain matters.

Useless information

[flyingfsck (986395)]

What on earth is this going to be good for?

Re:Useless information

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

Stopping terrorists...

Re:Useless information

[Finallyjoined!!! (1158431)]

Huh? Isn't it obvious; so they can lose the entire database in the post.

Re:Useless information

[mikael (484)]

Stock prices for data brokering companies, goverment contractors (HP, EDS), and server manufacturers. Seems more like an attempt to breath life into the UK IT industry to win votes in the home counties rather than anything practical.

Sending all that information to the database system is going to generate just as much traffic as spam generates. How on earth are they going to differentiate between spam with forged E-mail addresses and real E-mail, when they won't have access to the actual message contents?

Re:Don't forget...

[Hojima (1228978)]

Carl Marx wasn't a fascist he was a communist. Please don't confuse the the two, as the red scare really makes communism look worse than it is.

Re:Don't forget...

[Hojima (1228978)]

It's totalitarianism that killed people. There's a difference between a form of government and a form of commerce control. You can have Communism with a democracy you know, it just hasn't been tried (to my knowledge at least). What the soviet government did is hide under the blanket of Communism, but in reality, they were no different than any other oppressive monarch. That is what Orwell was trying to say. He didn't write against Communism, he wrote against the government that hid under it. If he wanted to write against Communism, he would have made examples of animals not competing due to a lack of free market, not a bunch of pigs abusing their power.

Sounds Like A Reasonable Proposal

[by Anonymous Coward]

But how about a much cheaper and effective method of keeping the UK safe from Teh Terrorists:

1. Stop supporting Israeli terrorism

2. Stop acting the lapdog to the United States rampaging through the Middle East in an effort to secure oil resources and pipelines and wacky Christian end of world judegement day type crazyness.

This is brilliant!

[erroneus (253617)]

When doing something that is both unpopular and demonstrably ineffective, the obvious solution is to do more of it. Those clever Brits! A perfect model for the future of U.S. legislation!

Re:This is brilliant!

[Tim C (15259)]

who needs a patriot act when you have camera's everywhere and anti gun laws that don't stop gun crime

Laws don't stop crime, but perhaps you should actually go and look up some statistics on per-capita gun crime in various countries, then decide whether or not the UK has a real problem with it?

We also do not have cameras everywhere - I can't think of a single one in the area of London that I live in. Yes, the centres of the cities and large towns have a lot of cameras, and yes I'm somewhat ambivalent about that, but no they are not "everywhere".

now the only two armed groups in the Uk are the military and the criminals

And the police, and the secret services, and a large number of farmers and other such people who own licensed firearms...

Fail

[TubeSteak (669689)]

If the British Government had any balls, they'd build their own version of the Great Firewall and log everything that goes through a node on their national infrastructure.

That way you can call it what it is.
Instead, the ISPs are being pulled into doing the dirty work, which means the gov't gets shielded from some of the heat.

Who exactly is proposing this?

[cortesoft (1150075)]

The article says it is being proposed by Home Office "officials", yet the only person from the home office mentioned by name seems to be clearly against the proposal. I have a feeling that this was just something discussed, maybe brought up in a meeting in the Home Office, but has never been actually proposed officially. In fact, the article seems to confirm this, as evidenced by the line

Home Office officials have discussed the option of the national database with telecommunications companies and ISPs as part of preparations for a data communications Bill to be in Novemberâ(TM)s Queenâ(TM)s Speech. But the plan has not been sent to ministers yet.

Of course things like this will be discussed amongst government officials, and talking to the telecoms to find out the technical feasibility would be something done early in the process. I would start to be concerned if this was officially proposed, and then really concerned if it was accepted and enacted.

Re:Who exactly is proposing this?

[mrsteveman1 (1010381)]

Damn facts...getting in the way of a good rant....fuckers

Premature?

[Bogtha (906264)]

If you want to write to representatives to let them know your views, contact details are available at Write to Them.

While I think Write To Them is a fine service and encourage people to use it more, I can't help but feel this is a little premature. This is just another hare-brained idea by the Home Office that MPs haven't even seen yet. Why don't we wait until they actually have a copy of the bill before bombarding them with complaints about it? Otherwise we run the risk of looking like paranoid kooks for protesting a bill that nobody has read because it doesn't even exist yet.

Re:Premature?

[dafrazzman (1246706)]

Pre-bill political wrangling is a proven tactic. If you get a lot of people to complain about the concept, the bill will never come to fruition.

In fact, if you can get enough people to write in fearing some sort of massive problem, any bill that can be seen to have the slightest association with that fear, no matter how much the original fear was inflated, will never come to pass.

Re:Premature?

[ewe2 (47163)]

Because history shows that a negative public reaction will make them think twice. The whole point of this "leak" is to test that public opinion, and allows MPs to avoid thorny questions. Frankly, being called a paranoid kook is preferable to being on a database.

Now more than ever

[ciaohound (118419)]

"Western civilization isn't possible without relational databases." -- Bruce Lindsay, IBM fellow. I always loved that quote.

to understand the source of this

[Ralph Spoilsport (673134)]

Watch Adam Curtis's documentary, The Trap.

Here it is:

Part One [google.com]

Part Two [google.com]

Part Three [google.com]

Brilliant stuff. Really sad. But brilliant.

RS

Wow!

[isotope23 (210590)]

You know, stories like this make clear its a good thing the Nazis didn't win WWII. Just imagine if the Nazis had won, they might have tapped everyone's.....
er..... Nevermind....

V for Vendetta

[Jane Q. Public (1010737)]

Cue the 1812 Overture...

Re:awesome

[letsief (1053922)]

Often the fact that you communicated with a certain individual is suspicious enough, especially if encryption was used. You don't necessarily need to know what was said to learn a lot of useful information.

Re:awesome

[Zemran (3101)]

Often the fact that you communicated with a certain individual is suspicious enough

Association is a guaranteed way of convicting an innocent person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six [wikipedia.org]

Republicans

[falconwolf (725481)]

Have you guys seen what's been happening to the republican assholes who've been running our government?

I won't blame the Republicans, the powers that the PATRIOT Act gave Bush Clinton tried to grab as president too.

Falcon

Re:awesome

[John3 (85454)]

Every month or two I make it a point to send a few long emails encrypted with PGP and with suggestive subject lines like "Schematics for trigger device" and "The Revolution Starts Now" to my Gmail or Hotmail account. The message content is just pasted Chuck Norris jokes, so if someone decides to spend some time and energy breaking the encryption at least they'll have something to read.

Re:awesome

[moderatorrater (1095745)]

"We're got a problem here, Johnson. If this Chuck Norris device can do even half of what this email claims it can do, we're onto the biggest terrorist plot in history!"

"Agreed. Hopefully he hasn't finished that triggering mechanism or we're all screwed!"

I don't think so

[slyborg (524607)]

Guantanamo Bay was created when Chuck roundhouse-kicked Cuba in the face during the Cuban Missile Crisis and so terrified Castro he begged Khrushchev to remove the missiles.

So *now* you know.

Re:awesome

[BitterOak (537666)]

enjoy reading my encrypted traffic and voip phone calls.

Don't forget that in the UK, you must hand over encryption keys on demand or face jail time. This has been the law for some time over there.

Re:awesome

[Hojima (1228978)]

enjoy reading my encrypted traffic and voip phone calls.

Don't forget that in the UK, you must hand over encryption keys on demand or face jail time. This has been the law for some time over there.

What encryption key? I happen to send arbitrary data to all my friends.

Re:awesome

[mikael (484)]

The number of British nationals emigrating every year to Australia, New Zealand France, Spain and many other countries runs to anywhere between 200K and 700K [telegraph.co.uk]. Mainly due to increasing crime, increasing taxation, declining standard of living and being treated as second class citizens.

Re:awesome

[GrahamCox (741991)]

I emigrated from the UK to Australia five years ago, because basically, as one tradesman-type person said to me very succinctly before I left: "Yeah, Don't blame yer mate, it's all fucked, innit?".

And it is. It's not just the government though - it's also overpopulation, and the fact the the average Brit is happy to work all hours for faceless corps who don't give a fuck about them, because they're all up to their eyeballs in mortgage debt (and are led to believe that owning ones own house is the be-all and end-all of existence, so it's all worth it really). Towns are unfriendly and jammed with cars - there are now so many cars you can't move for the fucking things, being used or just parked. Housing estates are horrible hideous anonymous places with bad architecture, built so shoddily and close together that everyone's at each others' throats about the noise and where everyone shuns their neighbours because there is just no fucking privacy anymore. Simple fact - 60 million people and counting simply do not FIT into the British Isles.

People pay insane prices for food and other basic needs, and put up with crap quality because they have gradually forgotten what good quality IS. Supermarkets have taken over every town and turned them all into identikit clones of each other - distinguishable only by the small differences in their dysfunctional traffic-saturated ring-road systems. And what are the supermarkets full of? Ready meals full of chemicals - for FUCKS sake Britain, cook your own food!

There's no pride in anything - ones work, ones environment, ones town, and nobody actually makes anything anymore - it's all "service industry" whatever the fuck that means, what 'industry'?

I don't believe in conspiracy theories generally, (after all, conspiracies require competence, and that's a precious commodity these days), but if some shady organisation had wanted to hatch a plot (in the 1960s, say) to turn Britain into a sleepwalking nation of compliant consumers that took any old shit thrown at them with a shrug, they could not have done better than what has actually taken place since then. Britain can be a beautiful place, and it has its good points, and good people, but as a nation it's lost its soul. Very sad. WAKEY WAKEY!!!

Re:Is this even legal issue?

[Pepebuho (167300)]

I do not think they are talking about statistical data in here. They mean the content of everything and that is A BAD THING(TM).

Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdom?!

[caitsith01 (606117)]

Being a U.S.-centric site, a lot of vitriol gets directed towards the US government around here (and so it should in relation to many laws and policies relating to "terrorism" and "security").

But what on earth is going on in the UK? Security cameras literally everywhere, compulsory DNA databases, laws permitting detention without charge or trial for long periods of time, that insane proposal for a law to allow laws to be made and abolished by regulation (i.e. without a vote in parliament), and this obsession with centralising government control over information, particularly insofar as it relates to the movements and communications of private citizens. The list goes on and on.

Britain stood virtually alone against fascism in World War Two, and was a bastion against the totalitarian Soviet bloc during the Cold War. Before then the UK resisted the power of the Catholic church, eliminated any real power for its despotic monarchs, and even briefly pioneered the field of total republican independence from hereditory rule, later embraced by some more celebrated republics. Before any of that you managed to write the Magna Carta, perhaps the greatest document on the rights of the individual in human history.

Why did you even bother, only to willingly turn yourselves into a bureaucractic authoritarian state? Sure, you're not murdering millions of your citizens in gas chambers, but you're only a hop, skip and a jump away from East Germany under the Stasi - total state surveillance and the tyranny of a huge, opaque executive government where faceless "officials" control the lives of citizens.

Wake up, before it's too late.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[denton420 (1235028)]

This is the first comment I read. I do not need to go any further before saying that you are not only right, but have put forth the truth in such an eloquent manner.

History does repeat itself, or so they say.
1700-1900 is NOT that long of a time span at all in the grand scheme of things. Now consider all of the world changing events we saw in just two hundred years. The change saw are almost unimaginable by even the most creative of minds. What will another 200 years and scarce resources bring?

I do not think even the most intellectual of us can fathom what the world will look like in a hundred years. If it comes down to it, the police state WILL be enforced if deemed necessary, and it will all be already in place ready to go...

We think we are so different from those before us, but are you so naive to think that they did not feel the same way about their previous generations?

It really is time to get up and do something if you live in the UK. This kind of stuff makes me feel good to be in the US... for once.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[conan1989 (1142827)]

this is not just something the UK citizens should be protesting / revolting over... if this goes through it will set a precedence for other governments to follow. but that's not to say that it isn't already happening, black ops do happen

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[Benaiah (851593)]

It sounds like that we are moving to the state of "Pre-crime" where we will be charged with suspicious activity even when no crime has yet been committed.

All they need now is some curfews and laws against private gatherings.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[Joce640k (829181)]

They already went there, believe me. Go to The Pirate Bay and get the movie "Taking Liberties" - it's a documentary about what the current government has done to the UK.

They have a clip of Tony Blair saying that he knows a whole class of people who will grow up to be be criminals and ought to be registered as such *pre-birth*.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the UK?!

[Capsaicin (412918)]

But what on earth is going on in the UK? Security cameras literally everywhere, compulsory DNA databases, laws permitting detention without charge or trial for long periods of time ...

I understand where you are coming from, and I hate being surveilled myself, but let's try to understand the context in which this is happening. Necessity is the mother of invention. For the better part of a half a century, the UK has been under constant terrorist threat and subject to numerous (often hightly deadly) attacks. They have a lot of experience dealing with this and these measures have developed over time (accompanied by some very poor curial decisions). This is not unqualifiedly good, but neither is it surprising.

Now that sections of Islam have declared war on Western civilisation, the UK faces a particularly nasty threat, namely a HUGE number of poorly socialised (into British culture) and radicalised Islamic youth living within their very borders. As we sit here from a safe distance, several hundred potential Islamic suicide bombers are devising way to kill the maximum number of Britons possible.

Perhaps the problem was that the British state (which after all is not separated from the Anglican church), has been too tolerant of religious diversity in the past.</irony>

... that insane proposal for a law to allow laws to be made and abolished by regulation (i.e. without a vote in parliament)

Sorry I'm not up to speed here. Delegated legislation is long established and is in use in virtually every common law country in the world. That's what a 'Regulation' (as opposed to an 'Act') is. Which particular insane proposal are you referring to that puts a new twist on this?

Britain stood virtually alone against fascism in World War Two, and was a bastion against the totalitarian Soviet bloc during the Cold War ... Why did you even bother, only to willingly turn yourselves into a bureaucractic authoritarian state?

Here you are simply committing an error of logic. While it is true that a "bureaucractic authoritarian state" would benefit from a highly surveilled society, a highly surveilled society by no means implies a "bureaucractic authoritarian state!" (Neither is the absence of effective surveillance a guarantee against authoritarian rule). This really depends on how robust British democracy is, how safe the legal framework is regarding the proper use surveillance, presumptions of innocence vs. protection of the public, data protection, privacy etc. etc. I don't think you should write off British democracy just yet (I mean it's not like they use electronic voting machines! ;)

Wake up, before it's too late.

I believe that's what they are doing! And one hopes that their basic liberal-democratic* values survive the challenge.

*I mean 'liberal-democratic' in the traditional sense of the term (ie. representative democracy through free elections balanced by respect for the rights of individuals, as embodied in the rule of law), not in the recent abusive misuse of the term to signify left-of-centre US Democrats, as employed by people who got their politcal education off the back of a Corn Flakes pack.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[religious freak (1005821)]

What's wrong with them? I think I've got a good idea...

Don't forget they have actually had a number of terror related incidents... more than one the US has had.

How many incidents do you think it would take to get the US on this track? (Keep in mind we've already got surveillance in NY where 9/11 hit hardest)

We love to think we're so brave and treasure our liberty above our security, but human nature is human nature. I'd say we'd cave similarly quickly in the same position...
* 2000 1 June: Bomb explodes on Hammersmith Bridge
* 2000 20 September: RPG attack SIS Building
* 2001 4 March: A car bomb explodes outside the BBC's main news centre in London.
* 2001 16 April: Hendon post office bombed
* 2001 6 May: The Real IRA detonate a bomb in a London postal sorting office.
* 2001, 3 August: The last Real IRA bomb in Britain explodes in Ealing, West London, injuring seven people.
* 2001, 4 November: Car bomb explodes in Birmingham
* 2005 7 July: The 7 July 2005 London bombings conducted by four separate suicide bombers, killing 56 people and injuring 700.
* 2007 January - February: The 2007 United Kingdom letter bombs
* 2007 30 June: 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_the_United_Kingdom (modified slightly for brevity's sake)

(This is just 2000-present. IRA bombs kill just as well as Al-Qaeda)

Re:You forgot to mention the sheep....

[777a (826468)]

Is all of this all down to the British Government or is it coming from the EU?

Unfortunately it's both from the UK and EU.

Watching Sky news (one of the two main news stations) earlier today they referred to the data retention law as an EU law, but that isn't entirely correct.

When the UK was president of the EU it brought in Europe wide data retention laws. It was shortly after 7/7 and managed to get enough votes to be passed.

When an EU law is passed the member states implement it in their own way (all member states are required their phone companies / ISP's to log phone / internet data for at least 6 months, some do longer).

So while this is technically an EU law, it was brought into Europe by predominantly by the UK.

Allowing the data to be stored by the government is a new, UK only law.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[!IH (33751)]

If you're charged with a crime, you get a DNA sample taken. If it doesn't go to court for whatever reason, or you are not found guilty, the sample is destroyed (unless you've got a prior criminal record)

Completely incorrect. If you are even arrested for a "recordable offence" (which most are) your DNA can be taken, and kept even if you aren't charged, (or even if the arrest was completely baseless). The only place where it is automatically destroyed is in Scotland, which is may be what you are thinking of.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[zsau (266209)]

By allowing entry into Britian to anyone with a British passport (which is to say anyone from any of current and former the British colonies) the British have lost control of their own land and country.

Huh! I wish! I was born in what was, at the time, a self-governing colony of Great Britain [wikipedia.org]. A couple of years later, it became independent of Great Britain [wikipedia.org] (the only significant change was that the government was appointed directly by the Queen on the advice of the the Victorian Premier, instead of on the advice of the British Foreign Office). However, neither before "independence" (Victoria of course remains a state of Australia, so it's not independent, merely independent of Great Britain), nor after it, was I entitled to a British passport.

And even of the former British colonies which have become practically independent of the United Kingdom more recently than my country, most people don't have access to a British passport.

And even of the present British colonies, or people who did whatever was necessary to retain a British passport in former British colonies, the mere possession of a British passport does not grant you right of abode in Britain. You need to have British Citizenship for that i.e. an association with Great Britain proper --- not just an association with a British colony.

France, on the other hand, is much more like you describe. You should check it out if you want scary weirdness.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[MadMidnightBomber (894759)]

This is in no way true.If you live in say, Pakistan, you do not get a British passport- you get a Pakistani passport. Recent immigration has mostly been from EU countries - none of them former colonies.

Mods really are on crack today, or else don't know *anything* about the UK. (Or possibly the original poster is Melanie Phillips.)

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[xaxa (988988)]

No, the mods are just Americans. The story was published and commented upon while everyone in Britain was asleep.

The reverse happens when America hasn't woken up when a story is published.

Re:Time to buy stock in storage providers..

[DarthBart (640519)]

8Khz sample rate at 8-bit/sample = 64Kbps

If you record the audio in each direction as a different stream, then you get 128Kbps.