UK and Web Monitoring..

[Raithe]

Ministers are preparing a major expansion of the Government's powers to monitor the email exchanges and website visits of every person in the UK, it has been reported.

Under legislation expected in next month's Queen's Speech, internet companies will be instructed to install hardware enabling GCHQ - the Government's electronic "listening" agency - to examine "on demand" any phone call made, text message and email sent, and website accessed in "real time", The Sunday Times reported.

 

BBC News - Email and Web Traffic to be Monitored under new laws

 

Yahoo News - Monitoring Expansion Proposed

 

The Home Office says the move is key to tackling crime and terrorism, but civil liberties groups have criticised it.

 

Attempts by the last Labour government to take similar steps failed after huge opposition, including from the Tories.

 

A new law - which may be announced in the forthcoming Queen's Speech in May - would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant.

 

But it would enable intelligence officers to identify who an individual or group is in contact with, how often and for how long.

 

 

Oh the joys and balance of security versus freedom....

[Humodour]

Wow, and to think Australia managed to ditch our censorship scheme in the end.

 

Still, apparently the government (ASIO, AFP) have warrantless wiretaps at every ISP. So that's pretty bad. I guess it's not as bad because it's not enshrined in law like the UK, though? Maybe.

 

It's all terribly Orwellian.

[Nonek]

Chaps at Sigint are going to be trawling through a veritable bounty of pornography, should this come to pass.

[Raithe]

It adds an interest that several Chinese companies were involved in some of the UK internet backbone development. Although supposedly the Government did run a lot of watchers on them to make sure they didn't put any backdoors for the Chinese government.. Paranoia makes you wonder if they were specifically keeping an eye out for developing their own versions..

[Walsingham]

I'm normally fine about this sort of thing. But I'm just not comfortable any more. Not sure why exactly. Ought to be some sort of opt-out if you have a big enough moustache, or something.

[Gorgon]

It's not far from just admiting eschelon and asking it be officially allowed to spy on everyone.

[Humodour]

It adds an interest that several Chinese companies were involved in some of the UK internet backbone development. Although supposedly the Government did run a lot of watchers on them to make sure they didn't put any backdoors for the Chinese government.. Paranoia makes you wonder if they were specifically keeping an eye out for developing their own versions..

 

Yeah, we've banned Huawei from participating in the construction of our national broadband network. With good reason, I feel. Although I guess the fact that the government is building the network does guarantee that they'll be throwing those backdoors in at every relevant node. Apparently the network engineers that do it are afraid to talk about it. Could be conspiracy-level stuff, but a few documents have leaked out over the years that indicate the Aus gove does in fact have backdoors.

 

P.S. I can verify 100% that ECHELON exists. I've seen the radomes used by the Australian portion of it to monitor EMR intelligence (e.g. satellites) from Oceania, South-East Asia, China, India, and Pakistan. Although honestly Echelon is mostly digital these. And apparently we've got more than a couple of people from the NSA over at places like Pine Gap here working with our groups like ASIO and the DSD to operate all those radomes, among other things. I don't think anybody really denies that it exists nowadays (I mean the EU has made it clear that ECHELON exists since they consider it a very low level threat), they'll just refuse to tell you what it is for.

 

I think that we will see the ideal of the right to privacy die out with us. It certainly doesn't exist in 1/6 of the world (China), and increasingly our governments and corporations are pursuing the same path.

[Zoraptor]

Our government had particularly amusing case of Echelon related butthurt. Some peace activists deflated the protective domes over our segment of it and got charged with criminal damage. The jury declined to convict, accepting the argument that it was not vandalism but an act of conscience and hence (tactitly) that it was a tool for spying on us.

 

Government response? Changed the law to remove act of conscience as a defence and sued the defendants in civil court.

[Raithe]

Not quite as bad, but the US is focusing on warrentless cellphone tracking.,.

 

With warrantless GPS tracking no longer legal, the government is going after Jones again and is gung-ho to use warrantless cell phone tracking via historical cell tower locational records. In fact, federal prosecutors believe you don't own your cell phone information, your wireless carrier does, and since a third party stores your records, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

 

US Government's Latest Weapon: Warrantless Cell Phone Surveillance

 

On January 23, 2012, in the biggest Fourth Amendment and privacy case in the digital age, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Jones that the government violated the Fourth Amendment and unanimously agreed that police needed probable cause and a search warrant before planting a GPS tracking device to an American's vehicle. Since GPS tracking evidence helped to convict drug dealer Antoine Jones, his life sentence was tossed out. Since then, the FBI has turned off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices. But now government prosecutors are seeking to retry Jones and said the GPS information is not needed; historical cell-site tower data provides locational tracking that can be used to map Jones' movements, activities and contacts. The cell-data was not used in either of the two previous trials against Jones.

 

According to the government, A cell phone customer "has no reasonable expectation of privacy in cell-site information" and has "no Fourth Amendment privacy interest in business records created and held by a third party." Instead, those historical cell-site records "are the phone company's business records rather than a customer's private papers." The government says that people are aware of this tracking capability and anyone arguing otherwise "relies too heavily on cell-phone users remaining unaware of the capacities of cellular technology, a doubtful proposition in the first place."

[Gfted1]

Not quite as bad? What an understatement! Theres a world of difference between being able to triangulate your location via cell towers and listening/reading every single call and email.

 

I know you Brits are comfortable with 24/7 surveillance, and public cameras dont bother me, but this makes my eyebrows go up.

[WDeranged]

The bloody typical thing about this plan is that the Labour party created it a few years ago, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who now occupy the coalition government both argued fiercely against it...the ConDemned party indeed.

[HoonDing]

 

Problem, Britannia?

[Meshugger]

The bloody typical thing about this plan is that the Labour party created it a few years ago, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who now occupy the coalition government both argued fiercely against it...the ConDemned party indeed.

 

For some reason, governmental policy rarely changes, no matter what party is in power. And the those silly politicians have the nerve to complain about low voter turnout and blatant cynisism, pheh.

[Walsingham]

I'm back to not caring. If private companies like Google track my every inter-moment then why not Her Majesty's Government?

 

Honestly, what bloody difference does it make?

 

I reserve the right to be less tired tomorrow.