British Government To Grant Warrantless Trawl of Communications Data

First time accepted submitter cardpuncher writes "Having opposed the previous government's attempts to introduce mass surveillance of Internet communications, the Conservatives are planning to introduce the very same policy they previously described as a 'culture of surveillance which goes far beyond counter terrorism and serious crime.' The plan is essentially to allow stored communication data to be trawled without the inconvenience of needing a warrant or even any reasonable suspicion."

Comments

Re:I hope this is an April Fool

[Artifakt]

You do understand that the real reason governments do things such as this is so they WILL be your government after the next election, and the one after that, ad infinitum?

Re:I hope this is an April Fool

[RichardJenkins]

The story is real, the Slashdot summary is utterly incorrect. For example, from the article:

"A new law ... would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant"

Also it doesn't say anything about trawling stored data, or proposing a requirement to stored data, rather that with a a warrant, GCHQ must be able to access data in real time.

Re:back to onetime pads and tapped morse it is, th

[bobbocanfly]

They can introduce all the warrantless tapping statutes they like but there's no obligation or wish on my part to hand over my decryption keys

Incorrect. The UK has the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which lets them demand encryption keys/passwords. If you do not comply, you can face jail time