Ministers in the UK are considering plans for a database to hold details of every phone call and email sent in the country. Apparently the system will be a “crucial tool” to protect national security and prevent crime. From BBC News:

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Communications Data Bill will help ensure that crucial capabilities in the use of communications data for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime continue to be available.

“These powers will continue to be subject to strict safeguards to ensure the right balance between privacy and protecting the public.” The spokesman said changes need to be made to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 “to ensure that public authorities can continue to obtain and have access to communications data essential for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime purposes”.

I will never vote for any party that votes for this to go ahead. They are going too far.

Of course, it will never get passed. What will happen is a watered down version of this will sneak through under the radar of the press, chipping away a little more at our civil liberties, something which many Western governments seem to care little about. They want to spend millions in tax payers money protecting our freedom, yet are willing to trade away that very same freedom in the interest of security.

At the weekend I took my daughter to the swimming pool for the first time. I was not allowed to take photographs of the occasion because paying customers are no longer seen as people by management, but as potential paedophiles. It’s blindingly obvious that those in charge don’t give a crap about the dangers of these criminals, they’re just covering their arses should something happen in their venue. Banning phototgraphy won’t solve the problem. It will just make it less likely that they’ll have legal action against them.

In the same way, the goverment doesn’t give a crap about the freedom they claim to be protecting, they just want to be seen to be doing something by voters.

The UK is now a country whose authorities are obsessed with terrorism and by paedophiles. We have suffered at the hands of terrorists in the past and mistakes were made then. The wrong people were fingered for crimes they didn’t commit. Sad though that was, I’d rather live in a country where mistakes are made than one where everybody is considered guilty before any crime has been committed. It bet if these laws were put to statute these mistakes would STILL happen, no more correct convictions would be made, and the collected data would fall into the wrong hands.

I no longer feel trusted by the people who I helped put in power, and whose wages I pay, along with the millions of other tax payers. They need to think about the consequenses of their actions.

Read more at: The National Terror Alert and at Engadget
Photograph licensed under Creative Commons from nolifebeforecoffee