Snooper's charter breathes again

Two stories today on the dreadful 'Intercept Modernisation Programme' otherwise known as the Home Office plan to monitor all of our emails, phone calls and other forms of private communications.

The first, courtesy of Kable, is that Phil Woolas MP has said that the £2bn Programme is due for completion in 2016; despite the bill being dropped from the Queen's Speech earlier this week.

As they report:

the information from Woolas shows the Home Office does not anticipate that this will delay the IMP, with 2016 as both the original and the current planned date for completion.

To make matters worse Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions - a role that ought to be entirely separate from politics - has come out today and said that monitoring all of our calls and emails is 'vital' in the fight against crime.

As reported by the Daily Telegraph:

Keir Starmer said the controversial plan, which would see the communications activity of every citizen stored for a year, was essential for establishing links with suspects.

His support is in contrast to his predecessor, Sir Ken Macdonald, who last year warned against the expansion of technology by the state into everyday life which could create a world future generations "can't bear''.

Sir Ken is right and it simply isn't the government’s job to monitor our private communications. We hear of too many cases of private and personal data being lost, sold or misused by the state to trust that our phone calls and emails won’t end up in the wrong hands.

In addition, the DPP should not be going around doing the government's dirty work - plugging a policy that the majority of British people find deeply worrying. And remember, Keir Starmer has previous in this field.

By Dylan Sharpe

Comments

[john ward]

We have been told time and again that GCHQ has only been given the £3billion 'test' monies but this simply is not true: they've had the full thirteen. We were told they would not be monitoring content, but this is simply not true: they have put the black boxes in place with ISPs. We were told the ISPs knew nothing about it, but this is simply not true: they have been paid £2 billion - of our money - to cooperate. You couldn't make it up.
JW