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UK ISPs Refuse to Monitor Users

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the we're-not-gonna-take-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The internet industry has refused to sign up to plans to give law enforcement and intelligence agencies access to the records of British web and email users, throwing David Blunkett's post-September 11 data surveillance regime into fresh disarray. In the latest of a long line of setbacks for the home secretary's data retention campaign, the Guardian has learned that internet service providers have told the Home Office that they will not voluntarily stockpile the personal records of their customers for long periods so that they can be accessed by police or intelligence officers."

2 of 489 comments (clear)

  1. LEAs have no other choice to catch the bad guys by EvilAlien · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    The problem is that the rapid proliferation of new technologies, i.e., Internet, wireless, PCS, etc, is leaving law enforcement and national security agencies in the dust. Without new laws they simply cannot address new threats or criminal activity that use those new communication methods. Is this a threat to civil liberties? Hell yes, but a little thing happened last year in September that pushed civil liberties to the background for the "Free World".

    The new technologies make it very difficult to allow agencies to develop the suspicion further surveilance requires as an antecedant. Traditional communications did not include the same reasonable expectations of privacy that we have today. A phone call always required you to be tied to a handset on the wall, with the possibility of being overheard. The availability of privacy for the average citizen and the average criminal has increased dramatically, and this is the only (public) way that the law enforcement and national security agencies know how to handle it.

    Is this right? Is this a Bad Thing for the long run? Quite possibly. You also have no "long run" if you get blown up in a terrorist attack or murdered by someone who couldn't be caught because their ISP refused to cooperate.

    --
    perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
  2. Re:DOUBLE STANDARDS!! by DEBEDb · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    One man's common sense is another's heresy, though...

    --

    Considered harmful.