It looks like the Government’s plans to keep tabs on everyone’s mobile phone calls and email messages are moving on a little. As the BBC reports:
Government plans to collect more data on mobile phone calls and internet usage have been further criticised as an attack on civil liberties.
The government is considering a new system which will automatically retrieve communications information from a centralised database.
Liberal Democrat Norman Baker said it was another example of Britain’s “surveillance society”
The Home Office says intercepting data is vital to fight crime and terrorism.
At present, the police and intelligence agencies can ask telecommunication providers for information on phone calls made, texts sent and internet sites visited.
That request can be queried and might then go to the Interception Commissioner, and possibly even further to another watchdog.
But under the new proposals, that right will be removed…
Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, said while technology had moved on “apace”, the protections for the individual had not moved on in parallel.
“We have a situation where the balance of power between the state and the individual, which is a key determinate of how a democracy is functioning, has increasingly shifted towards the state as technology has improved,” he said.
He said his concerns about the draft bill would be shared by other MPs but the government would try to silence those opposed to the new law by accusing them of being “soft on terrorism”.
Of course, you don’t have to rely on Norman Baker to talk to your MP about this issue. You can contact them easily and quickly yourself (even if you don’t know who they are) via www.writetothem.com
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Personally I reckon that such a move potentially breaches the right to a private life.
Just because electronic forms of communication tend to leave electronic traces, often necessary for billing, does not mean they should be any more open to surveillance than any other form of communicaton like snail mail or face to face conversations. “Because we can” is not a valid excuse for such state interference.
It is time for insurrection.
More and more this government is coming to resemble my ex-girlfriend.