Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
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.
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
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
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*.
No sig today...
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.
Help fight spam
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)
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
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.
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Mods really are on crack today, or else don't know *anything* about the UK. (Or possibly the original poster is Melanie Phillips.)
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."