UK Gov't Creating Centralized Snooping Silo to Monitor all Calls, Texts, Emails, IMs

[Solberg]

The UK government has decided to spend hundreds of millions of pounds (gajillions of dollars in US currency) on a huge central silo for all of the country's communications data. What'll that entail? Well, apparently "the one-stop-shop database will retain details of all calls, texts, emails, instant messenger conversations and websites accessed in the UK for up to two years." Oh my.

This Orwellian nightmare center would obviously take a while to get put together, and it's not clear exactly what it'll consist of or how it'll be put together. The folks behind it have, however, figured out a way to push it through without requiring approval by parliament.

Sources said secret briefings revealed the cost of the database would run to nine figures and has already been factored into government spending plans. The IMP budget was part of the intelligence agencies' undisclosed allocation in the Comprehensive Spending Review last year. In an answer to a parliamentary question on 8 July, the Home Office refused to provide any budgetary details, citing national security concerns.

A Communications Data Bill mandating the database was expected to be proposed before the summer parliamentary recess, but did not appear. It had been planned that the database would be bundled with the EU Data Retention Directive (EUDRD), which must be enshrined in UK law by March 2009.

However, last week the government released a consultation paper on transposing the Directive as a standalone statutory instrument. Laws made by statutory instrument do not require a vote in Parliament.

Well, I guess the silver lining here is that all this garbage going on in the UK is making the US seem like a shining beacon of freedom and privacy. Which is not a good sign for you poor Brits.

Source: Engadget

http://gizmodo.com/5038933/uk-govt-c...surf-histories

[Cobol74]

Repost I think.

[Momentum57]

old news the Americans Australians and British are all part of Project Echelon the NSA program to scan every call for keywords.

[D-Fence]

Originally Posted by Momentum57

old news the Americans Australians and British are all part of Project Echelon the NSA program to scan every call for keywords.

So are Canada and New Zealand .....

But I think the difference is the ECHELON is not really storing it for 2 years, it is more a "on the fly" scanner for evil stuff.

Maybe we can get some officials to comment on this.....

[echelon trap]
bomb terror allah infidel usa uk canada
[/echelon trap]

/me packs his stuff for a trip to cuba

[Vambeer]

Originally Posted by D-Fence

[echelon trap]
bomb terror allah infidel usa uk canada
[/echelon trap]

/me packs his stuff for a trip to cuba

rofl and at the same time thinking about our freedom...

[D-Fence]

"Our freedom" is just an excuse for the dumb sheep that actually believe this is to prevent terrorist attacks.

The USA is said to have used Echelon more than once for industrial espionage......but well, noone can prove it...

[Ottobon]

i remember hearing about that thing kept picking up phone conversations like "timmy bombed on his test last tuesday" when it was first introduced. Great use of tax dollars.

[Momentum57]

Well I am absolutely sure that when the first trans continental telegraph line was established it was bugged. More than that the telegraph operators were responsible for making sure that the communications were not of an illegal nature. Your are probably correct that this is the next stage of something more than Project Echelon.

Echelon's goal was to single out communications via keywords so "timmy bombed on his test last tuesday" would not jump out. Although "timmy really BOMBED on his US history test last tuesday. It was a fucking NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST. He got JEWED on the essay on malcolm x and the nation of ISLAM." may jump to attention but quickly be rulled out after they listened to the first sentence.

If this is true that they have this 2 year listening post then rest assured there is something much more advanced either in the works or already working.

By the time they shot Gary Powers down the SR71 was in its final phase before production. We had the stealth tech years before we told anyone. Why should we believe that there is not a blinking green light in FORT MEADE that can capture any bit of electronic communications.

There is one way to communicate that is always privileged between you and your lawyer. Get one and have your friends have the same one; anything that you say to him is privileged, anything he says to your friend is privileged.

[un-dee]

Originally Posted by D-Fence

"Our freedom" is just an excuse for the dumb sheep that actually believe this is to prevent terrorist attacks.

The USA is said to have used Echelon more than once for industrial espionage......but well, noone can prove it...

Eh? They openly stated they're using it for industrial espionage. That's why the EU has asked them to dismantle their stations in EU territory, which they do, and then put it up elsewhere two weeks later.

Remember Bad Aibling? It's all in Darmstadt now, maybe 2km from here.

[Suedschleife]

"In an answer to a parliamentary question on 8 July, the Home Office refused to provide any budgetary details, citing national security concerns."

That is hilarious.

Apart from the massive initial investment, I wonder about the running costs of such an operation.

The whole data retention and monitoring leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. The effectiveness is very questionable and circumvention not that hard (just like China's big bad firewall).

Over here they proposed to make the data accessible for other purposes like music/film industry on the hunt for file sharers, which really puts doubt in mind if it ever was intended as advertised. Thankfully our constitutional court still seems to know what civil liberties are, at least for now.

[Cobol74]

I think that this understates the capability of the facilities that the signatories have actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Funny how the signatories are all English Speaking countries and there are no continental European countries is it not?

[Susurrate]

I wouldn't worry about it, they're just looking for health and safety violations.

[jmsprovan]

just get a very strong scottish accent that no voice recognition software can understand.

[epp_b]

Time to start encrypting everything. Good luck with that.

[Cobol74]

They passed a law saying you got to tell the authorities the key if they ask - well in the UK (most people do not understand it so do not care).

[Blind_Io]

^ I lost it/don't recall. sorry.

When you crack it, could you give me my data?

[tigger]

I don't think any of this ECHELON business is too new or scary. Which in and of itself is scary. We shouldn't be surrendering our liberties in the name of security. Now I'm going to refrain from ranting about shady, power-hungry bureaucrats.

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

^ I lost it/don't recall. sorry.

When you crack it, could you give me my data?

I think I'd just tell them, "No".

[ryosuke]

they want to do that in order to stop data losses. because the next time something is lost, EVERYTHING is lost at once and they can't loose any more data in the future.