British authorities on Thursday unveiled an ambitious plan to log details about every Web visit, email, phone call or text message in the U.K. — and in a sharply-worded editorial the nation’s top law enforcement official accused those worried about the surveillance program of being either criminals or conspiracy theorists.
The government insists it’s not after content. It promises not to read the body of emails or eavesdrop on phone calls without a warrant. But the surveillance proposed in the government’s 118-page draft bill would provide authorities a remarkably rich picture of their citizens’ day-to-day lives, tracking nearly everything they do online, over the phone, or even through the post.
All that data would be kept for up to a year — ready for browsing whenever anyone in authority wanted it. In some cases, the bill envisages monitoring the information in real time.
Home Office Secretary Theresa May said in an editorial published ahead of the bill’s unveiling that only evil-doers should be frightened.
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Yet plenty of people were worried, including a senior lawmaker from May’s governing Conservative Party.
“This is a huge amount of information, very intrusive to collect on people,” David Davis, one of the proposal’s most outspoken critics, told BBC radio. “It’s not content, but it’s incredibly intrusive.” Full story...
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The government insists it’s not after content. It promises not to read the body of emails or eavesdrop on phone calls without a warrant. But the surveillance proposed in the government’s 118-page draft bill would provide authorities a remarkably rich picture of their citizens’ day-to-day lives, tracking nearly everything they do online, over the phone, or even through the post.
All that data would be kept for up to a year — ready for browsing whenever anyone in authority wanted it. In some cases, the bill envisages monitoring the information in real time.
Home Office Secretary Theresa May said in an editorial published ahead of the bill’s unveiling that only evil-doers should be frightened.
(...)
Yet plenty of people were worried, including a senior lawmaker from May’s governing Conservative Party.
“This is a huge amount of information, very intrusive to collect on people,” David Davis, one of the proposal’s most outspoken critics, told BBC radio. “It’s not content, but it’s incredibly intrusive.” Full story...
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- Bigger Brother: Total surveillance comes to UK...
- Privacy matters even if you have " nothing to hide"
- Your iPhone may not be your friend, could betray you...
- The NSA is building the country's biggest spy centre...
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