In 2013, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the British government had been snooping on citizens on a mass scale. Every email entering and leaving this supposedly modern, democratic and accountable country was being secretly intercepted, all in the interest of "national security" – which is totally justified, of course; people planning terror plots routinely send each other "just spilt some of the liquid explosive on my foot lol" memos from their unencrypted Hotmail accounts.
Over a seven-day period last July, things got worse. The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act – which demands that communications companies retain their customers' data for up to 12 months – was rushed into being. If a government department makes a request, they are now allowed to access the details of any text, call, email, tweet, Instagram post or Facebook update they like.
What this means, of course, is that your inane Twitter ramblings about Philip Schofield's weirdly smooth face have likely been viewed by a bigger audience than your 163 followers. But even worse is the huge amount of money being poured into this process.
"The costs of interception are largely met by the government, who pay service providers money to put in place the technology and processes to intercept emails," says David Mulcahy, a spokesperson for civil liberties campaign group Liberty. "We don't know the amount spent by government on this, but a report revealed that, in practice, it pays for 80 percent of the capital cost of new interception capabilities and 100 percent of the ongoing operational costs." Full story...
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Over a seven-day period last July, things got worse. The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act – which demands that communications companies retain their customers' data for up to 12 months – was rushed into being. If a government department makes a request, they are now allowed to access the details of any text, call, email, tweet, Instagram post or Facebook update they like.
What this means, of course, is that your inane Twitter ramblings about Philip Schofield's weirdly smooth face have likely been viewed by a bigger audience than your 163 followers. But even worse is the huge amount of money being poured into this process.
"The costs of interception are largely met by the government, who pay service providers money to put in place the technology and processes to intercept emails," says David Mulcahy, a spokesperson for civil liberties campaign group Liberty. "We don't know the amount spent by government on this, but a report revealed that, in practice, it pays for 80 percent of the capital cost of new interception capabilities and 100 percent of the ongoing operational costs." Full story...
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