British authorities on Thursday unveiled an ambitious plan to log details about every Web visit, email, phone call or text message in the U.K.—and in a sharply worded editorial the nation's top law-enforcement official accused those worried about the surveillance program of being either criminals or conspiracy theorists.
The government insists it isn't after content. It promises not to read the body of emails or eavesdrop on phone calls without a warrant. But the surveillance proposed in the government's 118-page draft bill would provide authorities a remarkably rich picture of their citizens' day-to-day lives, tracking nearly everything they do online, over the phone, or even through the post.
All that data would be kept for up to a year- - ready for browsing whenever anyone in authority wanted it. In some cases, the bill envisages monitoring the information in real time.
(Associated press)
Beyond noting that the price of a 250GB hard drive when I suggested this in 2006 was about the same as a 2TB hard drive is now, I don't know that I have much to update. My original three-part blog still seems entirely plausible.
