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UK Government Says More Spying Needed

Posted by timothy on from the need-to-make-up-for-the-losses dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Our wonderful government here in the UK has decided we're not being surveilled enough, and agreed to spend £12 billion on a programme to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage. According to various sources, upwards of £1 billion has already been spent on the uber-database. Rationale? Terrorism, of course (no prizes for guessing). Needless to say, not everyone is as happy as Larry over this: Michael Parker pointed out how us Brits are being 'stalked.' I'm just looking forward to when the data gets lost."

4 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. re by JohnVanVliet · · Score: 5, Informative

    well at least it is public here in the US the govt. still says that the NSA is not spying at the "NSA controlled a secret internet spying room in an AT&T facility on Folsom Street in San Francisco" quote from http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/rights-group-su.html see: http://news.cnet.com/AT38T-sued-over-NSA-spy-program/2100-1028_3-6033501.html

    --
    "I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
  2. Re:I'll take the risk then! by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can't meet your challenge. I do remember that one of the last terror attack victims - John Tulloch - said "not in my name, Tony", when The Sun decided to use his image to support the governments draconian legislation.

  3. Re:Keyhole career. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apologies for a serious reply to a joking post, but having worked temporarily in a government office and now working for a company which refuses to do government work full stop, this isn't how it works either.

    The government appears to be completely incompetent managing these contracts. They order one thing, then completely change their mind. They demand the impossible. They insist how things should work instead of focusing on what it should accomplish. Both sides end up pissed off and out of pocket.

    We're currently working on a contract for the Olympics. The olympics delivery authority is currently holding bidding for a job, and has spent months choosing a provider, but they've demanded that once they choose a provider, the system is ready in two weeks. That schedule is not possible. As a result, we've already done the job, and the other bidders must have either done the same or are planning to just not meet the contractual dates.

    As I mentioned, we don't work with the government. We've done the job as a subcontractor to one of the bidders, and we've been paid whoever wins the job. Pricing is never straightforward, but one way or another, the government will in the end have paid for half a dozen implementations of their system, all but one of which will be thrown in the trash. The bidding companies will just add their lost costs onto another job they win. This is really where the cost overruns on every single job go.

  4. Re:Keyhole career. by yabastaaa · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fear, what can't it do?

    Not much, it seems :(

    We've had a lot of rights removed over the past decade or so, rights we've had since the magna carta, but which have been discarded without debate or thought.

    As an example:

    • The government can ban any groups it labels ‘terrorist’ (Terrorism Act 2000)
    • The government can monitor any and all private communication (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000)
    • Armed forces can be deployed on UK soil in peacetime (Civil Contingencies Act 2004)
    • Property and assets can be seized without warning or compensation (Civil Contingencies Act 2004)
    • Spontaneous protest is now illegal around Parliament (Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005)
    • Without trial, any British citizen can be tagged, put under house arrest and banned from using the telephone or internet (Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005)
    • Any citizen can be imprisoned without charge for 28 days (42 days has passed the house of commons) (Terrorism Act 2006)
    • The executive can change any current legislation without consulting Parliament, with very few exceptions (Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006)
    • Arbitrary punishments with no legal precedents can be issued with little legal recourse, based on hearsay evidence ( Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003)
    • British citizens can be extradicted to the United States with no evidence presented (Extradition Act 2003)
    • Compulsory identification for all British citizens, with an unlimited amount of details stored in a central database, which the private sector will have access to (Identity Cards Act 2006)
    • Upon arrest the police have claim to your DNA, even if you are released without charge (Criminal Justice Act 2003)

    Taken from the site protests.org.uk