Government Retreats on Digital 'Big Brother' Plan
THE INDEPENDENT: Home Secretary accused of mishandling surveillance proposals

Plans to allow the authorities to monitor the online activity of every person in Britain were pushed back last night after being condemned by MPs of all parties.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, announced that the contentious measures would be published only in draft form and would be subject to widespread consultation – concessions that could delay the proposals for at least a year. In a letter to Mr Clegg published in The Independent today, 17 Liberal Democrat MPs welcomed his intervention but warned him their support could not be taken for granted on the issue.

A storm erupted this week after it emerged that legislation to allow the police, intelligence services, councils and other public bodies to obtain details of messages sent via Skype and social networks would be included in the Queen's Speech.

The disclosure provoked anger among Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs alike, who warned that the proposals contradicted the parties' opposition to a similar Labour scheme – and were not included in the Coalition Agreement. There have also been recriminations within the Coalition as Liberal Democrats – understood to have been backed by some Tory ministers – accused Theresa May, the Home Secretary, of mishandling the issue. » | Nigel Morris | Wednesday, April 04, 2012

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New Dark Age Alert!: In UK, Spies Will Tap in to ALL Emails and Telephone Calls
DAILY EXPRESS: 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. Spies Will Tap in to ALL Emails and Calls >>> By Macer Hall, Political Editor | October 6, 2008

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