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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."

7 of 38 comments (clear)

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

    Why are people still surprised by these revelations?

  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 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
  3. Why Secretly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  4. 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.
       

  5. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

  6. 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....