Coming soon to a country near you?
November 18, 2016Britain has passed the ‘most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy’
The law forces UK internet providers to store browsing histories — including domains visited — for one year, in case of police investigations.It’s 2016 going on 1984.
The UK has just passed a massive expansion in surveillance powers, which critics have called “terrifying” and “dangerous”.
The new law, dubbed the “snoopers’ charter”, was introduced by then-home secretary Theresa May in 2012, and took two attempts to get passed into law following breakdowns in the previous coalition government.
Four years and a general election later — May is now prime minister — the bill was finalized and passed on Wednesday by both parliamentary houses.
But civil liberties groups have long criticized the bill, with some arguing that the law will let the UK government “document everything we do online”.
It’s no wonder, because it basically does. […]
H.T. Paul B
What Britain needs is the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. And let’s hope those will protect the U.S. from laws like this.
You’ll need to read the article to learn about the features of this new law (the Investigatory Powers Bill). There’s a lot more to it than just storing your browser’s history.
Who knew that little DARPA project would turn into a gigantic honeypot?
Next up? Making civilian use of encryption illegal.
Since Britain is probably the place with the most CCTV cameras per person I suppose this isn’t too much of a surprise. Britons have been subject to everyday surveillance for years now.
And the Anglosphere has already been surveilling private communications — see Snowden’s documents about the Five Eyes alliance. This British law makes (some of) that surveillance legal, rather than surreptitious.
The only safe assumption is that there is no anonymity or privacy on any network.
No Truce With Kings 
Leave a Reply