open Democracy News Analysis - Whitehall battle over Big Brother surveillance, Tom Griffin - Comments

shadowfirebird on "Whitehall battle over Big Brother surveillance"

shadowfirebird — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:00:02 +0000

Also, be thankful for spam.

80% of mails sent are spam, so that should help keep our masters busy.

Anthony Barnett on "Whitehall battle over Big Brother surveillance"

Anthony Barnett — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:16:00 +0000

LOL <Inshallah>

Toque on "Whitehall battle over Big Brother surveillance"

Toque — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:15:55 +0000

What an excellent <jihad> idea. Just liberally <provos> scatter <anthrax> your emails and <uranium> texts with counter-terrorism buzzwords.

If this ever comes to pass <mortar attack> then this is what <Westminster> we will have to <IRA> resort to.

Wyrdtimes on "Whitehall battle over Big Brother surveillance"

Wyrdtimes — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:53:02 +0000

There's <bomb> at <number 10> least <Allah> one <death> way <revolution> to <semtex> deal <MI5> with <scotland yard> this.

Toque on "Whitehall battle over Big Brother surveillance"

Toque — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:37:22 +0000

I wrote a letter of complaint to BT about this and published it on my blog. In the morning I noticed that I was getting loads of hits from BT's intranet "blogwatch", with quite a few of them checking my About page.

I'd better sweep the house for bugs when I get home!

Whitehall battle over Big Brother surveillance, Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:13:05 +0000

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The security services are pushing for a massive expansion of electronic surveillance in the UK, in the face of opposition from the Treasury and the Cabinet Office, according to the Sunday Times:

The scope of the project - classified top secret - is said by officials to be so vast that it will dwarf the estimated £5 billion ministers have set aside for the identity cards programme. It is intended to fight terrorism and crime. Civil liberties groups, however, say it poses an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary citizens’ lives.

Aimed at placing a “live tap” on every electronic communication in Britain, it will dwarf other “big brother” surveillance projects such as the number plate recognition system and the spread of CCTV.

Pepper and his opposite number at MI6, Sir John Scarlett, are facing opposition from mandarins in the Treasury and Cabinet Office who fear both its cost and ethical implications.

In today's Daily Mail, Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve warns that "Any suggestion of the Government using existing powers to intercept communications data without public discussion is going to sound extremely sinister."

It will be interesting to see how much of the innocuously-named Interception Modernisation Programme makes into the forthcoming Communications Data Bill, not least in the light of last month's prediction by The Register:

It will not overtly mandate a government-contolled universal database of electronic communications. But sources said the mandarins behind the "Interception Modernisation Programme" (IMP) are determined to go ahead despite concerns about its public spending and ethical implications from departments including the Treasury and Cabinet Office.

Spending would be allocated under the secret budgets that provide funding for the intelligence services.