UK To Track All Browsing, Email, and Phone Calls 286
Sara Chan writes "The UK government plans to introduce legislation that will allow the police to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public. The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages. Every communications provider will be required to store the information for at least a year."
Who has access? (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue isn't so much whether law enforcement can scrutinize your web access, but rather that the information could leak out. A distressing amount of private information seems to be kept on laptops that keep getting stolen out of cars.
Requiring ISP's to keep this data is also iffy. ISP's don't want to be in the business of spying on their subscribers. There's no profit in it, it only angers the customers, and potentially the ISP could be drawn into a legal tangle if it potentially knows that someone is doing illegal stuff like, say, downloading and emailing nuclear bomb schematics to someone in North Korea or Iran.
Anyway it sounds like the government is leaving enough wiggle room to discard the policy if it generates too much controversy.
Re:Encrypte Everything (Score:4, Interesting)
Also I'm not sure of the specifics but if they really wanted to they could probably insist you give them the encryption key for a particular session... one which was generated and discarded by your browser long since.
then throw you in jail when you don't comply.
Re:Not so sensasonal headline (Score:2, Interesting)
> bit locker on your drives
BitLocker is closed-source and supplied by Microsoft. You can't trust it to not have some sort of back door. If you really need good drive encryption, go for TrueCrypt or Linux's ecryptfs tool. Or if not those, something else open-source at least.
Re:Encrypte Everything (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Attach a simple addition (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to blame the politicians, but these days I think they're almost as powerless as the rest of us.
The No2ID campaigner Guy Herbert is quoted in the article as saying:
We should not be surprised that the interests of bureaucratic empires outrank liberty.
And that's it. These plans represent job security for civil servants. They mean bigger budgets, bigger offices, higher salaries, more staff. More bureaucrats will be needed to operate the system, to answer requests for information from it, and implement whatever mechanism of "accountability" is considered sufficient to safeguard privacy.
The people who are pushing this will never face an election. They will never be sacked. This is why the plans persist from government to government. Ministers come and go, but the civil service is permanent, and always attempting to expand. The bureaucrats lost their battle for ID cards, but they're still winning their war.
So, I think if we want to impose surveillance on anyone, we should start with the public servants. And the more responsibility they have, the more closely they should be watched. The only problem is, in order to do this, we're going to need to hire a few more bureaucrats...
Re:Seems like Fiction (Score:1, Interesting)
These laws are being rolled out to all of Airs... uh... I mean to all of the European Union.
The UK laws are based on EU-directives, so if you live in the EU you will get similar laws in due time.
Re:Encrypte Everything (Score:3, Interesting)
The Act itself actually has a number of defenses, which aren't really discussed in the Wikipedia article.
IANAL, but if you could provide evidence to demonstrate that you genuinely did change your keys that frequently, you'd probably be OK.
Of course, I'd ask why you're keeping email encrypted that you can no longer decrypt - and if I'd ask it you can be more-or-less guaranteed that the prosecution would make a huge deal out of that.
Re:How old is this idea? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:We are called 'libertarians' (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, you're right, there were many a time when Jefferson would go on a long-winded THC-fueled rant about having "boots on the ground" and being "willing to die" to defeat a democratically elected government.
Of course, thankfully the lunatics usually aren't as industrious as Jefferson was, otherwise we might really be in trouble.
Whats wrong with the USA and UK? (Score:3, Interesting)
Both countries elected new leaders (Obama in the US, Clegg in the UK).
Both leaders (and their parties) promised real change. Less aggressionist foriegn policy. Less violations of civil liberties. Winding back the crap done by the previous government. Less acting on behalf of vested interests and more acting on behalf of the people who elected them.
Yet, both governments and their parties have delivered essentailly NONE of the things they promised and seem to be going the other way.
The UK seems to think 1984 is an instruction manual for how to run a government. And the US isnt that much better.
Is there a SANE country out there?
One that has:
A government that doesn't violate its citizens civil liberties
No censorship
Decent Internet links
Good jobs in software development
Good standard of living
Everyone speaks English
Oh and dont suggest India, there is no way I could live in a country where eating a nice jucy steak is against the national religion.
Re:They already track you with cameras (Score:3, Interesting)
The same thing is going to happen in the US, ACLU or not. The bills are already written. They are just waiting for another 9/11 to they can ram them through.
It already happened. How do you think that a massive bill like the Patriot Act got passed within days of 9/11? Like you said, it was just waiting in the wings. And I agree, we're in for more of the same. What irritates the FUCK out of me is the admiring stance taken by so many of our government officials towards the UK's surveillance state. It's crazy. What is with you people! Maybe we need to start requiring psych profiles for anyone holding public office, elected or otherwise. If you're paranoid, megamaniacal, delusional, or just a garden-variety sociopath ... out you go! Hell, bus drivers get them. Why shouldn't judges, lawmakers and the rest? Should not We the People know when someone for whom we're thinking of voting is batshit insane?
Re:We are called 'libertarians' (Score:1, Interesting)
"The tree of liberty must from time to time be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -Jefferson, after co-leading a revolution against a democratic government.
Re:Attach a simple addition (Score:3, Interesting)