Video: UK Home Secretary delays 1984 by a few years
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted April 27th 2009 10:06PM
posted April 27th 2009 10:06PM
The UK Home Secretary (whatever that is) has put the kibosh on plans for a giant government database that would track all of the country's emails, phone calls and internet activity. But not so fast, civil libertarians! According to the Telegraph, the onus will merely shift to the private sector -- with telecoms and Internet providers being required to retain the data, at a cost of around £2 billion (over $2.9 billion US). According to the plan, every Internet user will be given a unique ID code that the government can use to access the data in the event of a threat -- whether terrorist, criminal, or extraterrestrial. It just goes to show you how lucky Britons are to have a government that cares so much about their well being. Video after the break. 
Wow, sketchy.
Sorry to hijack, but I just made this, and it's very relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0zwgWRo_Sk
I'm surprised Czar Obama hasn't done this in the U.S. yet. I guess he can only take away so many freedoms at once...
Erm, because dictator bush already did?
@TheSuburbanWhiteBoy:
No doubt. I'm not certain he'll beat Bush's record though, which includes all that AND undermining the Constitution and the Supreme Court. Can't beat a prick and a war criminal like that.
Dictator Bush? That is almost the dumbest thing I've ever read on engadget.
What freedom exactly is Obama taking away... Funny how all you far-right ignorant lunatics bring up civil liberties and "freedom"
only AFTER the last decade of psuedo-tyranny under Bush. Bush basically shredded the entire bill of rights for 8 years including
- manipulating the intelligence agencies to provide false justification to start an illegitimate war
- illegally wiretapping United States citizens
- Holding prisoners at secret prisons overseas
- authorizing the detainment of American Citizens without charge or trial
- revoking the the genenva conventions and any right to a lawyer for terrorism suspects
- manipulating the media and even declaring that the executive branch can revoke freedom of the press and freedom of speech at any time of "emergency",
- manipulating the justice department into a puppet of the whitehouse that will justify in legal memos anything they want,
- countless other examples all well documented...
And now you idiots are screaming about "tyranny" because the Obama administration continued the bush-led bailout of banks? Could you guys possibly sound any stupider?
@ loosely_coupled
I could by using the word "stupider".
Actually, Obama's administration has made moves to continue many of Bush's practices with regard to domestic spying--even expanded them by claiming sovereign immunity of the government. But you folks keep on arguing. That's what you're supposed to do.
So they can always use TOR and post stuff on anonymous sites like http://www.anonboard.com ... seems like billions down the drain to me.
The 9th Law of the Internet:
People who use TOR have nothing interesting to say.
Of course saying 'dictator bush' is silly, the US population cannot deny responsibility for the guy, but I said it to illustrate and counter the 'Czar Obama ' statement, and by calling my statement stupid you by extension call that stupid too, so thanks.
@iwork
If ISP's log everything, in all western countries, then once it's in a db TOR won't work any more, because each node will have the logs of connection with a timestamp, so when you make a political post they can track it over the hops back to your IP, even if they don't manage to decrypt the stream itself.
Now you could use a few nodes in some place like venezuela or china maybe, but those are slow and run through pipes that are already monitored by the NSA and those have powerful supercomputers to break encryption too.
Also don't forget that the feds already run TOR nodes themselves so they can gleam anything that crosses them as exit or entry node and if people use passwords or discuss names or use aliases they also use for non-secure sites they can collate it all into an very informative package, and as history has shown there are many diplomats that use TOR and use passwords on it, so it's not half dumb for the feds to run TOR nodes and get passwords of dumb enemies as they log into their sites.
But do they care enough to torture?
Oh, that probably shouldn't of made me laugh so much.
The euros when they 'arrest' (muslim) terrorist suspects just hand them over to the US, because they say for instance 'they lack the infrastructure to deal with the suspects', knowing full well what happens next, or they after some phonecalls hang some silly charge on the guy that enables the US to ask for the person for 'questioning' or 'hostile action against US troops' and such charges to excuse themselves and wash their hands off it.
It's a two way system though, the CIA sometimes gets euro secret services to do stuff they can't legally do too, it's all a nasty, and partly documented and exposed, mess.
We don't use the word torture anymore. Now it's known as heightened interrogation. I guess soon we'll refer to it as unofficial conversation.
Ah, the removal of words is a beautiful thing.
"It just goes to show you how lucky Britons are to have a government that cares so much about their well being."
Oh, they care. I prefer to think of them as a 'Brotherment'.
This is kinda scary, doesn't anyone else think so?
Yeah, most definitely. Talk about total control of your life/Internet use. Beware, of the porn you watch!!
Nope just you. ;)
Naw everything will be fine... if you're a Party member. Personally I'm looking forward to Two Minutes' Hate.
You're not alone; it scares the living hell out of me.
"Beware, of the porn you watch!!"
True. Even visiting BDSM sites like kink.com can result in a three-year prison term; that's the same sentence that a teen would receive if he robbed you using a weapon. You will also get placed on the Violent and Sex Offender Register, along with rapists and child molesters. That means you will likely loose your job, and not get another one. It probably means that you will get terrorised by vigilantes who think that you're a pedo.
When watching a consenting adult have her breasts whipped makes you a criminal, you know that you're entered bizarro-world..
QUICK GET OUT BEFORE YOU CAN!
+T
+' +T?
With the caps and the typo that made me laugh a lot, I don't know why.
I do think this idea is better than the last. Less fear of the government snooping where they shouldn't if they don't have the data without court/police request.
Overall it does require more concrete protections though.
On the other hand, I do see where the are coming from in solving crimes. Before there used to be easy trails in newspaper ads, letters, phone calls. Now that data is spread anywhere on the internet and can be increasingly hard to find in order to solve crimes.
'Less fear of the government snooping where they shouldn't if they don't have the data without granting themselves access.', more like. The police are the government's attack dog.
It's an EU advisory directive that all ISP's have to keep a log of all URL's and all email addresses and every phonenumber you contact, of every EU citizen/visitor, how long is optional per member state from 6 months to 2 years, and being the nasty weasels they are most go for 2 years, incidentally the logs are just the numbers/addresses not the content, but seeing how all google searches have the searchterm in the URL for instance you can do the math how that has a ever so slight effect on privacy..
Many EU member states, if not all, already do it though, and the brits have a tap on their main backbone (handy to be an island) for years already but that's slightly 'unofficial' in that they are a bit shy about it.
The number for each user thing is an invention of the brits themselves though AFAIK.
Plus the US checks all traffic between foreign places already, and have the same proposal in respect to logging already running through the system, so don't go thinking the US is better.
It's amusing how they do all that crap for years then suddenly want to do it openly and there are people being surprised by it, pretty clever to be so naive and uninformed that people think it's not done already.
I'm so sorry that Britain is getting worse and worse each month that goes on. Soon enough, there'll be no one in Britain over the age of thirty, apart from some dude named Logan, who really likes to run.
Voted up for that.
Speaking of which, there's a remake(?) in production scheduled for 2010...
Logan started as a chaser as I recall from some time they showed that movie on TV.
Yes, he was a chaser at first, and yes, there is a remake: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402344/
lol, they better keep that crazy robot, Box, exactly as it was. Best/worst film robot of all time.
http://www.jeffbots.com/box.html
Fish, plankton, sea greens, and protein from the sea! And now your internet data, fresh as request day!
did they forget that they're the ones who actually wrote the book?
No way, I'm sure the family of the writer is being watched 24/7.
Hey, don't worry about the Googlemobile anymore, they're just getting a head start on their requirements.
Remember everyone, this will only be used for CRIMES, like, for terrorists, and seditionists!
I guess we'll have to take their word for it!
I hate my country.
Don't doubt your government. as adolf and staling used to insist.
You know various countries in europe had a nice database of who was jewish, then when germany invaded them it showed how handy databases really are, why don't people learn and see the advantages? So damn handy, and used only for what the german government deemed good so it was all legal and good since it was the government.
Stalin*
Gave him a gadget g by accident :)
That was supposed to be a general comment not a reply, stupid engadget.
EVACUATE! EVACUATE!
To where? There lies the rub.
Dubai or Yemen. Those places kick ass. If i was living in the EU i would move there crap government or not.
Not only would I not want to goto dubai or yemen, but even if I wanted to I know I'd have to be loaded, else you are basically a slave there.
Plus, what if you are jewish?