From an Our World Our Say e-mail:
Save Our Democracy Campaign
The Government Wants to Access All Your Phone calls, All Your Emails and Your Complete Web Browsing History
How Do You Feel About That?
A bill has been presented in the Government’s draft legislation programme for 2008 that will give the Government total power to snoop on our electronic communications.
The Communications Data Bill is due to come before the House of Commons in November. Even the Government’s Information Commissioner is none too impressed with this proposed bill.
Richard Thomas warned the database would be "a step too far for the British way of life". He said: "Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?“
What this bill means is that the Government can snoop on your phone calls (mobile or landline), your emails and your web browsing without you knowing.
At the moment this information is available to the police and a long list of other agencies but they need to request it from the operators. The operators in turn have a responsibility to ensure that the requests are fair and reasonable, and that the information provided is accurate. A request has to be for the communications activity of an individually identified person. That can be identified by a name, an IP address, a Phone number etc.
OWOS Action
The Government is inviting comments or questions about these proposals to [email protected]. With the low standing of the government at the moment they may be inclined to drop any controversial legislation, so it’s well worth sending them an email, and getting friends/colleagues to do the same, telling them exactly what you think of their plans.
It's a shame that people like those arrested recently over death-threats to Gordon Brown are probably 'all bark and no bite', if, indeed, they are anything to do with anything at all. Anyway, if you want to investigate whether the government is listening to what we say – in the sense of listening when we express our desires and opinions to them, rather than in the sense of spying on us like a bunch of filthy voyeurs (although, who knows, maybe this is their Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom ploy) – you could always use that e-mail address: [email protected]
From the article linked to:
Britain has seen a marked increase in attacks by Islamist militants since it joined the United States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Yes, a big thank you to Blair's government for making life more dangerous in the UK and then for eroding our civil liberties in the name of fighting the danger they had created. And respect to Gordon Brown for continuing in the same vein.
