UK Taps 439,000 Phones, Now Wants To Monitor MPs

JPMH writes "With the largest density of CCTV cameras in the world, and an increasing network of automatic number-plate recognition cameras on main roads, Britain has long been a pioneer for the surveillance society. Now new official figures reveal that UK agencies monitored 439,000 telephones and email addresses in a 15 month period between 2005 and 2006. The Interception of Communications Commissioner is seeking the right for agencies to be allowed to monitor the communications of Members of Parliament as well, something which has been forbidden since the 1960s. It must be that it is bringing their numbers down: on the law of averages they should be monitoring at least 5 of the MPs."

Comments

Oh please let them be monitored

[LiquidCoooled]

See how they like it.

Re:Oh please let them be monitored

[Elemenope]

You do realise that there is no amorphous blob called the police? You realise that the police are made up of a bunch of people, some of whom are very competent, some of whom are less so. This is why the police can do one job well, and one job badly, because there were different police in handling the issue.

'Tis true that police departments are composed of diverse sorts of individuals of varying levels of competence. However, particular departments can encourage development of certain ways of doing things, certain professional culture, through policies, hiring criteria, and subtler social pressures, such that the vast majority of the officers will behave in a predictable way given the same circumstances. The quality of that behavior depends upon those policies and what the interior culture is.

At the University I attend, there are two neighboring towns which have substatial contact with the students. They have separate police departments, and while they are all individuals as you say, I have a reasonable expectation of being treated fairly by an officer from one of those towns, and not so much from the other. Occassionally I am pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised, but not often. I suspect it has a lot to do with differences of priority, different internal cultures, and probably even different policies.

So many people on slashdot seem to have difficulty in dealing with groups of people. I guess it makes it easier to argue.

The formation of categories and identification of general delineations and trends are crucial to thought and discussion. I agree it can be done well or poorly, and some folks are better at it than others. The trick is to identify which factors of distinction are important and which are trivial. Not always easy, and easy thus to err on the side of excluding something important in the generalization.

Fuck this...

[Ckwop]

May I be the first to say holy fucking shit. I mean, I knew it was bad. I once counted three hundred or so security cameras on a trip around Liverpool but I never once suspected that we had it anywhere near this bad.

And these goons want a road-pricing scheme via GPS tracking? Jesus f-ing Christ. Next they'll want to photograph people in toilets in case they decide to take drugs in them. They really are that bat-shit crazy!

My Grandma died last year of cancer. She was one of the brave women that gunned down German planes over Widnes during World War II. Their generation's sacrifice, every single last one of them appears to be in vein. For we've become the very thing we fought sixty years ago. How did this happen? How did we let ourselves be cowed in to this?

The faceless little shits behind this will never be known. Their crimes will never go punished.

Any Canadians willing to sponsor a immigrating Brit?

Simon

Re:Fuck this...

[zeoslap]

>> How did this happen? How did we let ourselves be cowed in to this?

One word. Alcohol. The alcohol based culture of the UK causes both street crime and traffic fatalities so you end up with cameras in the streets and cameras on the roads, perhaps it also leads to numbed citizens that don't really care as well (debatable).

I lived in the UK till I was twenty and it's only when you leave and look back that you see just how much people drink there.

Re:Fuck this...

[julesh]

even the stupid TV-License (gosh, I have received tens of "this is the final advice, we are knocking down your door next time").

Something I've been waiting for someone to try for a while. If you've informed them that you don't have a TV (or, conversely, do have a licence), but they continue sending the letters anyway, they may be in breach of the Malicious Communications Act, 1988.

It'd be fun trying it, at least. :)

Re:Fuck this...

[Bj�rn]

There are already cameras with face recognition software outside of London. Here are a few commercial products:

• http://www.identix.com/
• http://www.guardia.com/
• http://www.cybula.com/Facenforce.htm
• http://www.a4vision.com/

Oh and here is an article about how How Facial Recognition Systems Works. From the article:

A ticket to Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa Bay, Florida, didn't just get you a seat at the biggest professional football game of the year. Those who attended the January 2000 event were also part of the largest police lineup ever conducted, although they may not have been aware of it at the time. The Tampa Police Department was testing out a new technology, called FaceIt, that allows snapshots of faces from the crowd to be compared to a database of criminal mugshots.

So yeah your future scenario is not that far fetched at all.

A better test than you think!

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it highly unlikely that the people in power (yes, in power; not "representing") would tolerate being surveiled. It's been forbidden for 40 years FOR A REASON: they don't want to be watched. Nobody does: not MPs, not office or factory or construction workers, not layabouts, not housewives. It's offensive to any human because it's degrading and subordinating.

Here's the test:
If this push is rebuffed, that's MASSIVE and blatant hypocrisy on the part of the lawmakers of the land. They tolerate and directly facilitate the surveillance of their constituents, but consider themselves above their constituents, and thus above such proletarian shackles. That's the status quo, and has been since it became technologically feasible to surreptitiously monitor them 40 years ago. Even if they don't allow this, it's a small news item in a world of bigger things to spin, so not many people would notice, let alone think about it enough to care, let alone act.

If they cave in, I don't know what to think. In my opinion, the public should at least be able to monitor the actions of its government and its agents, but it is abundantly clear that MPs at large disagree emphatically with that notion. Therefore, they'd have a different motive. Placating the public? "See? We're under a microscope too, the humans were meant to live!" I doubt that. The public may have the power to unseat them, but it desperately lacks the will to do so. Just don't care? Not a chance (remember: humans hate this). Just hard to imagine this outcome.

Finally, the footsteps in the night are coming for them, too.

Re:A better test than you think!

[TobascoKid]

FOR A REASON: they don't want to be watched. Nobody does

Except Big Brother contestants, which, of course, has included an MP. I'd think they'd go for something like this, but in 1984 style, really only for "outer party members" and even then it wouldn't be 24/7, with politicians knowing how to get around the monitoring for when they're doing something dirty. It could be sold as a means of "fighting corruption" and even worse, it could be used for white washing - "look, I didn't sell peerages, here are the surveillance tapes".

The public may have the power to unseat them, but it desperately lacks the will to do so.

I'd love to know why. I can only think that either a lot of people are really just not that interested (as long as there's enough "bread and circuses" they don't care who's running the show or what they do), or they tacitly agree with the government (but can't be bothered to vote) or they just "go along with everybody else" (which doesn't require voting, as all you have to do is accept the opinion of the majority of voters). I also think holding elections on weekdays doesn't help. No matter what, it does not make for a functioning democracy.

Re:WTF? Seriously, WTF?

[Rob T Firefly]

I might be wrong, but 'can be used in court' != 'can be used by police in the course of their investigations'. A phone intercept might, for example, lead to a raid on a premises, which would then reveal evidence that could be used in court.

That does make a certain kind of sense. However, doesn't this pretty much suggest that the powers that be are actually more interested in gathering and hoarding massive amounts of data than actually using the data they have to catch criminals? It seems to me a bit like becoming a dentist for the explicit goal of collecting infected teeth to fill your infected tooth jar, rather than any desire to actually treat the people connected to said teeth.

Re:WTF? Seriously, WTF?

[Hoi Polloi]

Sort of like all of the info that J Edgar Hoover accumulated as head of the FBI? Not very useful in court but great for ruining lives, political careers, etc.

I know why you did it...you were afraid.

[Anonymous Coward]

V: Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Tom.

[Jeremi]

I don't need advanced CCTV cameras to violate your rights. Get that through your head.

Of course not. But it sure makes it a lot easier to do it wholesale.

In the real world, things aren't determined by what is theoretically possible, but by what is economically feasible. Ubiquitous CCTV cameras make wide-scale person tracking economically feasible, and that is the key.

By analogy: You don't need a nuclear bomb to kill everyone in Chicago.... given enough time and effort, you could do it with a machete. But once you have a nuclear bomb, it becomes a whole lot more likely that you can pull it off, and thus a whole lot more likely that you will try.