Strange days indeed, when it takes a porn baron to keep an eye on Britons’ online liberty. Could Richard Desmond become the UK’s Larry Flynt, I wonder? He’s had a hand in politics before…
Back along I posted about the Interception Modernisation Programme and the paucity of the available information about it:
Speaking of IT clusterfscks…
Somebody tipped me off to the innocent sounding “Interception Modernisation Programme”, but what is this exactly? It’s mentioned in this “Security and Counter-Terrorism Science and Innovation Strategy” document (PDF) from the Home Office, which seems to be some sort of happy face p.r.-minded strategy overview to show how on the ball the government is in combatting terrorism through innovation and science . In this context, the “Interception Modernisation Programme” is only mentioned in an aside and it sounds like it could be anything:
Intercepting terrorist communications
Knowing the content of terrorist communications is vital to the UK’s ability to respond to terrorism. The cutting-edge interception technology required is therefore critical to building up our intelligence and to understanding the nature of the threat.
The Interception Modernisation Programme is a cross-Government programme which aims to maintain the UK’s world-class capability in obtaining and exploiting terrorist communications data. It is a key example of how Government is using innovative and ground-breaking technology to stay well ahead of the terrorists
Well, now I know, courtesy of the Daily Express, proprietor New Labour’s favourite pornographer, Mr Richard Desmond:
After the top-secret plans were leaked yesterday critics accused the Government of stalking the public. Michael Parker of anti-identity card group No2ID said: “It is a shocking intrusion into privacy. This is stalking. If an individual carried out this sort of snooping, it would be a crime.”
Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said the proposal marked “a substantial shift in the powers of the state to obtain information on individuals”. And after a series of embarrassing security blunders including the loss of child benefit records for every family in the country, he questioned Whitehall’s competence to keep such data. He said: “Given the Government’s poor record on protecting data and seeing how significant an increase in power this would be, we need to have a national debate and the Government would have to justify its need.”
ALL telephone calls, emails and text messages in Britain will be monitored under new Government snooping plans. A £12billion identity database at the GCHQ spy centre could even log every website visited by computer users nationwide.
Hundreds of bugging probes will be installed in the telephone system and computer networks to monitor communications traffic.
GCHQ has already been handed £1billion of taxpayers’ cash to begin developing the database.
After the top-secret plans were leaked yesterday critics accused the Government of stalking the public. Michael Parker of anti-identity card group No2ID said: “It is a shocking intrusion into privacy. This is stalking. If an individual carried out this sort of snooping, it would be a crime.”
Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said the proposal marked “a substantial shift in the powers of the state to obtain information on individuals”. And after a series of embarrassing security blunders including the loss of child benefit records for every family in the country, he questioned Whitehall’s competence to keep such data. He said: “Given the Government’s poor record on protecting data and seeing how significant an increase in power this would be, we need to have a national debate and the Government would have to justify its need.”
The plan for the biggest surveillance system in British history is being spearheaded by GCHQ director Sir David Pepper.
It is currently classified as top secret and is being developed under the title: Interception Modernisation Programme.
The aim is to set up a “live tap” on every electronic communication in the country. At present, security service MI5 carries out limited monitoring of email exchanges and internet use.
Ministers have been told that the latest computer technology lays the grounds of a massive expansion of monitoring.
The database is likely to be centred at GCHQ’s famous “doughnut”-shaped spy centre in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Further details will be released when the Government’s legislative programme is announced in the Queen’s Speech in December.
The plan is even more ambitious than the Identity Cards scheme being gradually introduced by the Government at a cost of £5billion. While a final decision has yet to be taken, ministers are understood to have agreed to the move “in principle”.
No wonder the Express is worried, considering how much money Desmond’s business empire makes from soft porn and technology – and considering some of the very dodgy people he’s done business with too.
Sometimes private (very private) interests and public interest collide – so shouldn’t Desmond put some of his porn-derived cash behind the privacy campaigns, if he’s so concerned?