Meet PRISM's English Little Brother: Socmint

An anonymous reader writes with a story at Ars Technica, according to which "For the past two years, a secretive unit in the Metropolitan Police has been developing the tools for blanket surveillance of the public's social media conversations. Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a staff of 17 officers in the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) has been scanning the public's tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook profiles, and anything else UK citizens post in the public online sphere. ... Surveillance operations often require a ministerial sign-off or permission from a superior, but it is unclear whether targeting of public social media data requires the same level of oversight, as head of research at Privacy International Eric King points out."

Comments

Re:So it's not really the same then...

[s.petry]

No you can't, your logic is broken. First, you don't have the time required to do this. Second, you are not getting paid with other people's money to do this. Lastly, you are not using this data in an official capacity even if you had the time to gather it.

The UK's shit stinks just as much as the US's. I think the difference is really that in the US we are pretty vocal about it on US sites like /.. For all we know in the US, the UK may have the same movements that we just don't see in the US.

I scoff at anyone in the UK thinking they are so much better off than the US in terms of corruption and tyranny. I saw how the military treated people and declared martial law without much dissent during the Olympics. Yeah yeah, I know.. "it's for the children" and "war on terror" and all that nonsense. Most of you don't stand up for yourselves just like most Americans won't stand up for themselves. It's easier to point fingers and wave to the other side trying to convince yourself that it's all sunshine and rainbows where you are standing.

Apologies if the bluntness causes offense, but it's the shortest distance to the point.