See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,7369,731074,00.html
This could have very profound changes on how we view state surveillance. I
fear that it will become culturally acceptable to snoop on electronic
communications just as it has become acceptable to have cameras everywhere
we walk. Very very grim news, and very disappointing that the government
chose to announce it in such a low key way.
One would hope that the EU Human Rights legal framework could help out but
it seems unlikely given the noises coming from Europe since last September.
I'm convinced this will lead to communications surveillance on a scale never
before seen here. People conducting their own searches will be very unlikely
to be honest about the scale, since they won't really have any reason to.
The telecomms people will have to geaar up their systems to make it easier
to provide snooping access. The police don't like using surveillance
evidence in court as it might lead people to understand their capabilities
so we never get to know how widespread it is. From what I can gather
telecomms companies are usually more than willing to cooperate with
investigations (though they may see less incentive to cooperate with lower
ranking depts). Also, the spread of encryption has been painfully slow,
which is where a lot of people see the magic bullet coming from. On the
other hand this could be just be what is needed to motivate people.
I'm keen to know what everyone else thinks about this?
:(
Cheers,
Bob.
|