Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Plods to get more dastabase powers...

pirate | 15.10.2008 16:22 | Analysis | Social Struggles | Terror War | London | World

Home Sec Jacqui Smith attempts to back expantion on database state and more powers to police. ( All done for our own good of course.. yeah right)


BBC news website 15.10.08.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7671046.stm

You can leave your er 'polite' comments below the article...

SEE ALSO: Data powers behind the times. ( 15/10: BBC Home Affairs Corres-Danny Shaw):  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7671759.stm


Police may get more data powers

Jacqui Smith said intercepting communications was 'vital'
Jacqui Smith has set out plans to give the police and security services more powers to gather phone and e-mail data.

The home secretary said police risked losing the ability to fight crime and terrorism without new laws.

The government is considering creating a giant database to store details of every UK phone call and e-mail sent.

Ms Smith stressed the "content" of conversations would not be stored but she wanted a national debate on what new powers should be introduced.

And she warned that without increasing their capacity to store data, the police and security services would have to consider a "massive expansion of surveillance".

Plans to collect more data on people's phone, e-mail and web-browsing habits are expected to be included in the Communications Data Bill, due to be introduced in the Queen's Speech in November.

'Vital capability'

In a speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research, Ms Smith said: "Our ability to intercept communications and obtain communications data is vital to fighting terrorism and combating serious crime, including child sex abuse, murder and drugs trafficking.

"Communications Data - that is, data about calls, such as the location and identity of the caller, not the content of the calls themselves - is used as important evidence in 95% of serious crime cases and in almost all Security Service operations since 2004.

There are no plans for an enormous database which will contain the content of your emails, the texts that you send or the chats you have on the phone or online

Jacqui Smith


Analysis: Behind the times?

"But the communications revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we intercept communications and collect communications data needs to change too.

"If it does not we will lose this vital capability that we currently have and that, to a certain extent, we all take for granted.

"The capability that enabled us to convict Ian Huntley for the Soham murders and that enabled us to achieve the convictions of those responsible for the 21/7 terrorist plots against London."

She said the "changes we need to make may require legislation" and there may even have to be legislation "to test what a solution to this problem will look like".

There will also be new laws to protect civil liberties, she added, and she announced a public consultation starting in the New Year on the plans.

"I want this to be combined with a well-informed debate characterised by openness, rather than mere opinion, by reason and reasonableness," she told the IPPR.

'Necessity'

One option being considered by the government is the creation of a single, centralised database containing records of all telephone numbers called, time and location of calls, websites visited and e-mail addresses used by UK citizens.

The idea has provoked concern among experts, including the government's own reviewer of anti-terror laws, Lord Carlile, who said: "The raw idea of simply handing over all this information to any government, however benign, and sticking it in an electronic warehouse is an awful idea if there are not very strict controls about it."

But Ms Smith moved to reassure people that there were no plans to monitor and store the content of all e-mails and phone conversations.

"There are no plans for an enormous database which will contain the content of your emails, the texts that you send or the chats you have on the phone or online.

"Nor are we going to give local authorities the power to trawl through such a database in the interest of investigating lower level criminality under the spurious cover of counter terrorist legislation.

"Local authorities do not have the power to listen to your calls now and they never will in future. You would rightly object to proposals of this kind and I would not consider them.

"What we will be proposing will be options which follow the key principles which govern all our work in this area - the principles of proportionality and necessity."

Lord Erroll, of the all-party Parliamentary group on communications, and the all party internet group, said he was concerned about the idea of a single database.

"I just feel if you centralise all this data in one place, people then have the power to search and could make the wrong inferences - they could draw the wrong conclusions - from some of the stuff they look at. And if they want to have a go at someone it makes it much easier to do so," said the peer, who founded the telecoms company VoiceXchange.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Should the police and security services be given the power to collect and store phone and email data? Do you work for the police or security services? How useful a tool would this be? Send us your comments using the form below:

see link to article.
------------------------------------------------------ends---------------------------------------------

pirate

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Oops — pirate
  2. want to comment on the Database? — anti-Stasi
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech