UK 'Snooper's Charter' Seeks To Eliminate Pesky Private Communications

[jack404]

As expected, the UK government has published its Draft Communications Bill (pdf) -- better known as the "snooper's charter," since it requires ISPs to record key information about every email sent and Web site visited by UK citizens, and mobile phone companies to log all their calls (landline information is already recorded).
Since this was only released a few hours ago, people are still trawling through it to find out what delights it holds, but an eagle-eyed David Meyer has already spotted something rather extraordinary: the UK government seems to be proposing to log not just every IP packet, but every physical packet -- and letter, and postcard -- too.
That's thanks to Section 25 of the Draft, which states:
Part 1 [the main requirements to log communications data] applies to public postal operators and public postal services as it applies to telecommunications operators and telecommunications services.
And if you were wondering what "communications data" means when applied to letters and postcards, it includes:
postal data comprised in or attached to a communication (whether by the sender or otherwise) for the purposes of a postal service by means of which it is being or may be transmitted
Letters, telephone calls, email and the Web -- this is a level of total surveillance that countries like China, North Korea or Iran can only dream of. What remains unclear is how the UK government will try to gather this incredible flood of information, and whether it can access it in real time. Here's what the site Privacy International thinks will happen:
The government today published a draft version of a bill that, if signed into law in its current form, would force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile phone network providers in Britain to install 'black boxes' in order to collect and store information on everyone's internet and phone activity, and give the police the ability to self-authorise access to this information.
That article points out that two important questions on the Internet side of things remain unanswered:
However, the Home Office failed to explain whether or not companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter will be brought under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), and how they intend to deal with HTTPS encryption.
When an official was pressed on that last point, he gave a rather disturbing reply:
At this morning's Home Office briefing, Director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism Charles Farr was asked about how the black box technology would handle HTTPS encryption. His only response was: "It will."
This is going to get very interesting.


http://www.official-documents.gov.uk.../8359/8359.pdf

[raven818]

Wait until that technology get ripped off and sold to the highest bidder. And it will be.

Every means of communication, available to every type of law enforcement agency, and the ability to 'self authorize' themselves.

I hesitate to state the obvious, but, what agency anywhere, including ours, does not have an infiltrator, or three?

This opening-up of all data available, will include your privacy, concerning banking, credit cards, investment account numbers, passwords for everything, and on and on.

Wow. This should make the NWO movement a bit smoother.

[jack404]

and seeing the EU is pushing to go cashless ,

every time you buy something , could be the last time you have cash in your account

cause if the cops can read your data , the amount of holes in police networks will allow others to see it too ..

[22WRF]

FAQ http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/uks...d-to-know/5183

[raven818]

The U.K. government wants the police, intelligence services and other government departments to have access to data relating to citizens Web, email and phone traffic in a bid to prevent terrorism and disrupt major crime.

Uh-huh. If it's not storing the actual content of emails, phone calls, etc., how will they know if it's terrorist related or not?

Joe Smith gets an email/phone call from Alley Babba about persian rugs. HEY, sarge, Babba? Sounds fishy to me..shall I get a warrant and hop on it? BS.

It requires senior officers authorising this, they can only do this when investigating a criminal and when it is necessary and proportionate

I feel better. Everybody know once an LEO of any type gets promoted, they sign an oath saying they won't do anything illegal.

Theresa May said “ordinary people” had nothing to fear from the proposed law.

Nothing can possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong.

[BlackEagle]

I've been watching this develop for a while. More nanny state garbage.
And even if they catch any bad guys, they only give them thirty lashes with a wet noodle.
The government is crazy about databases to collect information about private citizens. In 2009 the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust issued a summary report: http://www.jrrt.org.uk/publications/...cutive-summary

and a full report: http://www.jrrt.org.uk/publications/...te-full-report

on the database state here in the UK. In the introduction to the full report it states:

Of the 46 databases assessed in this report only six are given the green light. That is, only six are found to have a proper legal basis for any privacy intrusions and are proportionate and necessary in a democratic society. Nearly twice as many are almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law and should be scrapped or substantially redesigned, while the remaining 29 databases have significant problems and should be subject to an independent review.

I wonder how far this legislation would get if challenged in the European Court of Human Rights?

The report was sparked off by the revelation of several losses of massive amounts of personal data by government personnel. Disks with info got lost, left on trains; usb sticks get left in parking lots; laptops get stolen, left in taixis, on trains, in pubs.