Sunday, October 05, 2008

Big Brother Comes to the UK

Sweden recently passed a law requiring that every telephone call, email, and other form of electronic communication be monitored by the government, beginning Jan 1, 2009. The officially proclaimed reason — to guard against “terrorism” — has not prevented ordinary Swedes from expecting that the new year will bring an unprecedented surveillance of their private lives. A country that already lives under stifling politically correct rules on public discourse will in future be subjected to the same kind of control over private communications.

Now it looks like the same thing is about to happen in Britain. Every Briton would be well-advised to declare a love for Big Brother, because he will soon be watching — and listening.

According to the Times Online:

Government Will Spy on Every Call and E-Mail

Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project.

Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers — thought to be BT and Vodafone. BT has nearly 5m internet customers.

Ministers are braced for a backlash similar to the one caused by their ID cards programme. Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “Any suggestion of the government using existing powers to intercept communications data without public discussion is going to sound extremely sinister.”

MI5 currently conducts limited e-mail and website intercepts which are approved under specific warrants by the home secretary.
- - - - - - - - -
Further details of the new plan will be unveiled next month in the Queen’s speech.

The Home Office stressed no formal decision had been taken but sources said officials had made clear that ministers had agreed “in principle” to the programme.

Officials claim live monitoring is necessary to fight terrorism and crime. However, critics question whether such a vast system can be kept secure. A total of 57 billion text messages were sent in the UK last year — 1,800 every second.


Hat tip: Gaia.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suspect this is a trial balloon for EU-wide monitoring.

Anonymous said...

Opps. To continue my thoughts, how do you crush anti-EU sentiments and activism without this power? It's also a wet dream for imposing Islam.

Henrik R Clausen said...

'Terrorism' is becoming a thin excuse. For it seems they've done a pretty good work at preventing any major attacks since 2005. Well, I guess any excuse will do in a pinch.

As for 'Crime', it would help a *lot* if the police would do a better job. I've read Dalrymples' accounts of how the police seems more preoccupied by protecting their own reputation, not being charged for 'excess violence' etc. than in cracking down on crime. The case of Lionheart is a prime example of that. As far as I know, there are areas of England that are basically lawless.

Big Brother stuff is just a diversion from the real problems. And a dangerous one, at that.

Henrik R Clausen said...

For the police getting paranoid about their reputation, we actually have a similar problem in Denmark. Antifa-style people, who have been arreested for street riots, file massive amounts of lawsuits against the police for excess violence etc. They got themselves a good laywer (can always be had for money) and are making a media splash of it.

Even though the cases are mostly dismissed as baseless, it is a move that significantly taints the image of the police in the public, which is exactly what the Antifa groups want.

In the UK, people on police boards with links to Common Purpose just might be in front giving the anti-police sentiment 'the benefit of doubt'.

The usefulness of 'Big Brother' programs for Common Purpose is an excersise I'll leave for the reader. I recommend watching the video in the second of these links to get an introduction to what CP is.

Fjordman said...

I'm tempted to say that this has been planned for a long time. They destabilize the country by introducing mass immigration, and then they use the problems caused by their own policies as an excuse to monitor critics of mass immigration as well as all forms of political dissidents.

Henrik R Clausen said...

Planned? My notion is that it's 'implicit planning', where few, if any, really had an idea where this was headed. Grabbing power, be it in Islam or CP, seems to have been the primary purpose. And using it for nothing useful.

Sometimes I think we may see a failure of 'political power' as such. But only after we've had a really big mess.

Anonymous said...

These people are idiots.

Thy import millions of half civilized or fully savage people, and then insist that they have to treat everybody like a felon in order to control the bums they've brought in.

It never occurs to them to just close the damn borders.

Assuming they're not under direct orders from foreign powers to let all those bums in.

Citizen Kane said...

Unfortunately, this story seems to be accurate. As a citizen of the UK, I feel totally let down by the encroachment on our freedoms which this government has sponsored. Yes, I know we are at war and as a citizen I don't mind making sacrifices because of that, but we know which section of the population the terrorist threat is coming from, so to curtail the freedom of every citizen is in my opinion, intentional overkill!

what happened to Magna Carta? What happened to England, home of the free? I'm disgusted.

Andreas K. said...

Problem is: all countries are cutting down their police forces (too expensive, stupid excuse) and they also castrate the rights of the officers on the streets. I've once heard that in Germany, an office can ask you to open your bag, but you don't have to do it. In Austria, a cop is not allowed to stop a foreigner and ask for an ID.

Boy... I love Japan more and more. Police with actual rights AND doings its job.