A News Item in Silicon.com: - One in 78: The chances your comms are being monitored forms a teaser to a much more detailed news report from ZDNet UK: Public targeted by 1,500 monitoring bids per day. So quoting from the ZDNet article: Police, local councils and other UK public authorities made more than half-a-million requests to see citizens' communications data in 2008, according to a watchdog report.
I am neither shocked, nor surprised at the total, but was surprised and actually quite annoyed, that local councils appear to be a major player in wanting to see our communications records. As far as I am concerned, the Police, Security Services, Borders Agency and HM Revenue and Customs should be the only organisations with the authority to request this information.
Requesting Communications data, which by using the provisions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act , authorities can ask service providers for data such as which individual has communicated with whom, and when and where this communication took place and that is totally different from actively monitoring someone's communications.
From the moment I made my second post in this Blog, I assumed that due some of the Words and Phrases used, it would attract the interest of automated monitoring software (in this case no different from the way a search engine would gather information) and that providing the authorities were having a slow day, they might first request my Communications Data and then if things were really quiet, they might be granted a request to actively monitor my communications. Does this remote possibility upset me: NO, actually I would feel sympathy for any operative tasked with doing the monitoring, as being bored to tears listening/reading my communications, was almost certainly not what they hoped their job would entail.
Whilst I am more than peeved by Local Councils being involved in find out peoples communications data, my angst is nothing compared to extreme annoyance of the Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Chris Huhne: Who criticized the Government for allowing that volume of communication data gathering. Amongst the other things he went on to say, the following provided some ironic amusement:
"The government forgets that George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, and not a blueprint," said Huhne. "We are still a long way from living under the Stasi, but it beggars belief that is necessary to spy on one in every 78 adults."
Thoughts:
I wonder how many were repeat requests for the same person? - I suspect a large number.
How many requests led to a request to actively monitor communications in real time for a period of time (which is spying)? - I suspect a tiny percentage.
How many active monitoring requests led to a full investigation? - My guess is very few!
How many investigations led to prosecution? - Knowing, would satisfy my curiosity, but suspect less than 10%
Because, Local Council involvement aside, I don't have a problem with this, I am almost certainly once again out of step, at least with the 'chattering classes'. Well I can live with that!
Finally, back to Chris Huhne and George Orwell's 1984: This book was indeed a warning, about control of the population by taking away any sense of personal responsibility and accountability. This being accomplished through the enactment and then enforcement of laws that governed a citizen's every moment of their life and making every utterance either politically correct or illegal. In Orwell's world, even a simple domestic request becomes a major bureaucratic exercise.
Now for me this does have a familiar ring. Welcome to the 'Nanny State' resulting in a 'You Cannot do that Britain'. Now that is something I find very worrying!
I am neither shocked, nor surprised at the total, but was surprised and actually quite annoyed, that local councils appear to be a major player in wanting to see our communications records. As far as I am concerned, the Police, Security Services, Borders Agency and HM Revenue and Customs should be the only organisations with the authority to request this information.
Requesting Communications data, which by using the provisions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act , authorities can ask service providers for data such as which individual has communicated with whom, and when and where this communication took place and that is totally different from actively monitoring someone's communications.
From the moment I made my second post in this Blog, I assumed that due some of the Words and Phrases used, it would attract the interest of automated monitoring software (in this case no different from the way a search engine would gather information) and that providing the authorities were having a slow day, they might first request my Communications Data and then if things were really quiet, they might be granted a request to actively monitor my communications. Does this remote possibility upset me: NO, actually I would feel sympathy for any operative tasked with doing the monitoring, as being bored to tears listening/reading my communications, was almost certainly not what they hoped their job would entail.
Whilst I am more than peeved by Local Councils being involved in find out peoples communications data, my angst is nothing compared to extreme annoyance of the Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Chris Huhne: Who criticized the Government for allowing that volume of communication data gathering. Amongst the other things he went on to say, the following provided some ironic amusement:
"The government forgets that George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, and not a blueprint," said Huhne. "We are still a long way from living under the Stasi, but it beggars belief that is necessary to spy on one in every 78 adults."
Thoughts:
I wonder how many were repeat requests for the same person? - I suspect a large number.
How many requests led to a request to actively monitor communications in real time for a period of time (which is spying)? - I suspect a tiny percentage.
How many active monitoring requests led to a full investigation? - My guess is very few!
How many investigations led to prosecution? - Knowing, would satisfy my curiosity, but suspect less than 10%
Because, Local Council involvement aside, I don't have a problem with this, I am almost certainly once again out of step, at least with the 'chattering classes'. Well I can live with that!
Finally, back to Chris Huhne and George Orwell's 1984: This book was indeed a warning, about control of the population by taking away any sense of personal responsibility and accountability. This being accomplished through the enactment and then enforcement of laws that governed a citizen's every moment of their life and making every utterance either politically correct or illegal. In Orwell's world, even a simple domestic request becomes a major bureaucratic exercise.
Now for me this does have a familiar ring. Welcome to the 'Nanny State' resulting in a 'You Cannot do that Britain'. Now that is something I find very worrying!
1 comment:
I was also annoyed to see that only local councils have the such need. They should not have so.
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