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

Posted by Zonk on from the note-quite-enough dept.

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."

7 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Oh please let them be monitored by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Interesting

    See how they like it.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
    1. Re:Oh please let them be monitored by iainl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lovely idea, except there are MPs and MPs. They aren't going to be listening to John "Slippy Shoulders" Reid trying to work out how the latest disaster is Someone Else's Fault. Opposition Members might find some 'unusual' feedback on their lines, however.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  2. Fuck this... by Ckwop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:Fuck this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Any Canadians willing to sponsor a immigrating Brit?

      No. Don't run away to North America just because you don't have the balls to stand up to the thugs in your own country. Your grandma didn't run away. You shouldn't either.

    2. Re:Fuck this... by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      BTW, do you really think the cameras are archived or looked at in any depth.
      You're right, they're just there to scare you and the images are never archived and nobody looks at them.
      In fact there is no electricity going to the cameras and those in the know often climb up and bash them open to release the candy hidden inside for all the gleeful British children on the ground below.
  3. One wiretap for every twelve crimes? by mrogers · · Score: 5, Informative

    The figure seems particularly large when you consider that around 5,000,000 crimes were reported in England and Wales during the same period. Does one in twelve crimes require a wiretap? Or is it possible that at least some of the surveillance is politically motivated?

  4. Know thy (internal) enemy by Bushcat · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Know what everyone does.
    Know where everyone is.
    Pick them up when the time's right.

    I sometimes think freedom is simply a government not having the right to know where you are.