Hat Tip: Samizdata
Britain’s slide into total surveillance will take another step soon as the Telegraph reports:
All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they are contacting, when, where and which websites they are visiting.
Despite widespread opposition over Britain’s growing surveillance society, 653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.
They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to access the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.
Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a massive Government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.
However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately-held “Big Brother” databases which opposition leaders said amount to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.
It is doing so despite its own consultation showing there is little public support for the plans.
Yet again, the government sets up a scheme of mass indiscriminate surveillance, yet again access to the information is given to numerous public bodies, with officials able to use them on their own authority and without any need for a warrant.
The Stasi would be proud of this sort of thing. Britain is becoming increasingly like a hi-tech version of East Germany.