SurveillanceU.K. security services push for expanded surveillance power
U.K. security services are pushing for a massive expansion of electronic surveillance in the United Kingdom, in the face of opposition from the Treasury and the Cabinet Office
As English soldiers huddled in ships which carried them across the Channel to the battlefields of the First World War, or crouched in trenches under German bombardment, they listened to Vera Lynn singing “”There’ll Always Be an England”:
There’ll always be an England
While there’s a country lane,
Wherever there’s a cottage small
Beside a field of grain.
There’ll always be an England
While there’s a busy street,
Wherever there’s a turning wheel,
A million marching feet.
There’ll always be an England,
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me.
The question many Britons ask themselves today is how free England will be under the growing weight of surveillance. Tom Griffin writes in Our Kingdom that the U.K. security services are pushing for a massive expansion of electronic surveillance in the United Kingdom, in the face of opposition from the Treasury and the Cabinet Office, according to the Sunday Times:
The scope of the project - classified top secret - is said by officials to be so vast that it will dwarf the estimated £5 billion ministers have set aside for the identity cards program. It is intended to fight terrorism and crime. Civil liberties groups, however, say it poses an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary citizens’ lives.
Aimed at placing a “live tap” on every electronic communication in Britain, it will dwarf other “big brother” surveillance projects such as the number plate recognition system and the spread of CCTV.
Pepper and his opposite number at MI6, Sir John Scarlett, are facing opposition from mandarins in the Treasury and Cabinet Office who fear both its cost and ethical implications.
In today’s Daily Mail, Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve warns that “Any suggestion of the Government using existing powers to intercept communications data without public discussion is going to sound extremely sinister.” Griffins says it will be interesting to see how much of the innocuously-named Interception Modernization Program makes into the forthcoming Communications Data Bill, not least in the light of last month’s prediction by the Register:
It will not overtly mandate a government-con tolled universal database of electronic communications. But sources said the mandarins behind the “Interception Modernization Program” (IMP) are determined to go ahead despite concerns about its public spending and ethical implications from departments including the Treasury and Cabinet Office.
Spending would be allocated under the secret budgets that provide funding for the intelligence services.
