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MI5 'Secretly Collected Phone Data' For Decade (bbc.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the oh-by-the-way dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The UK's controversial Investigatory Powers draft legislation has acknowledged for the first time that British intelligence agency MI5 has been collecting huge amounts of data on phone calls since 2005. "The draft bill aims to give stronger legal cover to the activities of MI5, MI6 and the police and introduce judicial oversight of spying operations. It confirmed that Britain's secret listening post GCHQ has been intercepting internet messages flowing through Britain in bulk, as revealed by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden, 'to acquire the communications of terrorists and serious criminals that would not otherwise be available.'

It also revealed that the UK security services have been allowed to collect large amounts of data on phone calls 'to identify subjects of interest within the UK and overseas,' provided they comply with certain safeguards, set out in a supporting document (PDF) also published on Wednesday." Nick Clegg, who was deputy Prime Minister until earlier this year, says that for a long time, government officials "refused to acknowledge that the democratization of the security state had become inevitable."

38 comments

  1. Surprised? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why are people still surprised by these revelations?

    1. Re:Surprised? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because citizens still believe that nation states police themselves.

    2. Re:Surprised? by ranton · · Score: 1

      Why are people still surprised by these revelations?

      More importantly, why are people still surprised that no one cares about these revelations?

      Someone posted yesterday that he felt vindicated for his attempts to keep his company off the cloud after the Snowden story first broke. It just goes to show how disconnected security and privacy minded people are from the general public.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    3. Re: Surprised? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does your post add to the discussion? Can you tell us how to stop this?

    4. Re:Surprised? by Agripa · · Score: 1

      Will people be just as surprised to discover later that MI5 continued to collect all of this data and more after the law is changed to supposedly stop it?

  2. It's called the SECRET service for a reason by louic · · Score: 4, Funny

    If they openly collected telephone data they would not be called the SECRET service.

    1. Re:It's called the SECRET service for a reason by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      Hmmm the MI in MI5 & MI6 stands for Military Intelligence (Oxymoron's aside). Not sure where you're getting Secret Service from.

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    2. Re:It's called the SECRET service for a reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The secret is who are they listening right, now (the style of certain BBC's dumcumentaries comes to mind). And of course, who are the current investigators and who is involved in a particular investigation.

    3. Re:It's called the SECRET service for a reason by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      Hmmm the MI in MI5 & MI6 stands for Military Intelligence (Oxymoron's aside). Not sure where you're getting Secret Service from.

      MI5 and MI6 are now officially known as the Security Service and Secret Intelligence Service respectively.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    4. Re:It's called the SECRET service for a reason by davester666 · · Score: 0

      So, MI5 is the SS and MI6 is the SIS...

      The more things change...

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  3. Secretly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're secret agents. Everything they do is secret. They're hardly going to be openly and publicly collecting phone data, are they?

    1. Re:Secretly? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      They've given you a number, and taken away your name.

      That sure as hell better not be obscure.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  4. Why Secretly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Citizens should be happy to share their data and help make this world a safer place.

    1. Re:Why Secretly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

    2. Re:Why Secretly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After all it's not as if these are the same people who ran death squads on the streets of Northern Ireland for 30 years.

  5. Achtung Subject!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You might become a terrorist, paedophile or marijuana user. The authorities are just trying to protect you from yourself.
       

    1. Re:Achtung Subject!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most people are at least one of those things. Basically as bad as being all of them.

    2. Re:Achtung Subject!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Careful there, pedo rights are next on the agenda. You wouldn't want to be labeled as a hateful bigit, would you?

  6. From The Department Of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I fucking told you so for the last 30 fucking years!

    1. Re:From The Department Of by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Then, by my math, you were wrong for 20 of them. The thing about conspiracy nuts is that even a blind dog finds a bone once in a while. So yes, while painfully obvious that spying agencies spy, that doesn't mean the the government is controlled by lizard people.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    2. Re:From The Department Of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So James Bamford wasn't writing about this in the early eighties then? YOUR math is off by 30 years.

      Nobody said anything about lizards or a conspiracy. Not that most Americans actually understand the C word...

  7. How does this differ from Echelon by kennethmci · · Score: 1

    is this different than the already discussed-many-times http://slashdot.org/?fhfilter=... ?

    1. Re:How does this differ from Echelon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea, it's fully done by the UK government.

    2. Re:How does this differ from Echelon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so what the american attitude is that it is alright for the NSA to spy on foreigners thats their fucking job' well im okay with m16 spying on you lot because that spart of their fucking job.

      Not so happy about the spying on me part though.

    3. Re:How does this differ from Echelon by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Echelon was for 5 eye nations as a global shared look up database of words used, calls name, new name calling a name in a database, fax, email, phone service, voice prints, global sat phone use, banking, computer networks, language translation to vast digital storage.
      MI5 was more for UK eyes only and very protective of the eg Irish issues, methods and links with its own informants.
      A lot of that was never going to be shared or was for UK eyes only. The UK also offered what was once called a HOW - Home Office Warrant.
      Other options consisted of sat use to track groups of one or two people meeting, aircraft as a tracking system over a wide area eg car beacons, thermal look down, dirtbox like kit for early cell phones to track a person the UK was interested in.
      The UK was also very careful never to share such data with the US, due to differences over the Irish question within US states and US federal politics.
      Requests for US support often faced very, very unexpected results so the UK quickly learned kept its own data very safe.
      All that 1970's-90's effort later expanded into a very direct system for the past decade. The UK was also much more interested in informants per group down to groups of around 3 people. Offers made, one or more people could be turned and then advanced to run many more smaller groups.
      ie informants over decades gained a total look down trust over many other groups.
      Very different from the US computer databases collect it all systems that hope the interesting people always will have a phone, computer, laptop, modem, web 2.0 account, use IM or forums, IRC or not be voice print aware.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  8. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We do what we fucking please. If deemed convenient, we push a law through making it legal.

    1. Re:Translation by tomthepom · · Score: 1

      If found out, we push a law through making it legal.

  9. Proof this is justified by trevc · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    All the spying paid off when they prevented a jet from being blown up over Egypt by ISIS.

    1. Re:Proof this is justified by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the spying paid off when they prevented a jet from being blown up over Egypt by ISIS.

      It was a Russian jet, so as far as the British intelligence services are concerned, fuck yeah.

    2. Re:Proof this is justified by CaptnCrud · · Score: 2

      That's another good point, what good does all this data collection do when the people you're looking for are 16-23 year old extremists that decided "last night" to ghost some plane full of randoms because the sermon was so moving the night before (which is what most of these "terrorists" seem to be...). You can't catch individuals using data collection when its done at random and on a whim.

      This all assumes the individuals doing this are well coordinated and planned out, which I think the reality couldn't be further from the truth....

    3. Re:Proof this is justified by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      Quite the contrary, those kinds of operations take planning, dry runs, procurement of supplies, training ,etc..

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  10. enough by Marquis231 · · Score: 1

    God, I get it, okay? I get it! Everything I thought I knew was a lie! Do you have to remind me every week with another story of the five_eyes surveillance? Nay, every day?! Snowden save me, war is peace.

  11. If only... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they had a mandatory long-form census to collect information about their citizens.

  12. Has anyone in power asked "to what end?" by CaptnCrud · · Score: 1

    It really boggles my mind just how nonchalant all this has been broached by...well pretty much both america and the uk officials. I just don't get it, they haven't caught anyone (that we know of) via all this surveillance than how can its excuse as a security measure actually be taken seriously. Why is all this intelligence gathering necessary from a security standpoint. Its seems to me the sheer bulk of data will obfuscate anything of worth for the most part.....so what's the point?

    It's like secretly collecting all the medical data on each individual several times a year for multiple years on every person on the planet whether they want that or not, only to find "one" person with cancer. How does this make any ethical sense??

    1. Re:Has anyone in power asked "to what end?" by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      re "Why is all this intelligence gathering necessary from a security standpoint."
      To run informants at every level of human rights groups, workers rights groups, peace protesters, environmental campaigners, anti war groups, animal rights groups, emerging digital activists.
      As front groups to soak up and re direct a lot of smart peoples efforts into useless busy work or track any new people who are wealthy, photogenic and charismatic.
      ie to redirect any people who had the time, smarts, fund and ability to change or create traction for issues that no gov wanted in the press.
      The entire structure of any group could be created or replaced at any level to make way for or advance informants over decades.
      Journalists, lawyers, university groups efforts had to be contained, shaped and redirected if their message got too much attention.
      ie to have one trusted person in on any small meeting of 5 -20-100 people every decade on all political or social issues.
      No courts or press needed as press photography and captions could be very difficult to hide given multiple cover stories over years. Web 2.0 is now even more tricky to contain.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  13. Good News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank goodness the intelligence service is doing this as well as other measures. The UK has been a haven for radical Arabs for far too long. Time to send them home.