Doubleplusungood

[ciphergoth]

Thanks to akicif for the heads-up, propogating this one because it's important and fucking scary.

A headline (Government sweeps aside privacy rights) and a leader (British Liberty, RIP) from today's Guardian. It's not just the Police, Intelligence services, and the tax authorities who can get at anyone's telephone and internet communications data without a warrant or court order, but seven Whitehall departments, every local authority in the country, NHS bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and 11 other public bodies ranging from the postal services commission to the food standards agency....

But it seems it's all necessary to continue the War on Terrorism. So that's all right, then.

Unchanged from akicif's text because I can't improve on how he put it! See also "'Snoop' plans raise privacy fears" (BBC News)

Update and, following wechsler's example, here's my PGP public key.

Comments

[lovingboth]

Surely Patricia Hewitt, a former general secretary of Liberty, is one who would want to assert the importance of a robust right to privacy?

One of the two authors of the letter to then Labour leader Neil Kinnock saying that being nice to queers frightened off voters, wasn't she?

The fire service can already knock down your house if they feel like it, I really don't see why anyone thinks they should be able to get someone's web browsing habits. I can only imagine it's in there to be removed later as a concession.

If I used an 0845 number to call my co-located PCs, I could be my ISP. Hmmm, I must see if I can become a broadband reseller.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

well, well well yes but the fire service are generally nice and don't have any reason to knock down your house, and have houses of their own that it would be possible to knock down also, making it generally not an advantageous thing for them to do.