MPs wave through Blighty's 'EMERGENCY' surveillance laws

Wankers the lot of'em... that is all.

unsurprised, but ...really?

people simply bend over and take this in britain?

So...

...how long until the entire IP histories and phone logs of all MPs and their families and associates go on public record?

Email your support/opposition

If we only make our views known behind closed doors, we can't blame them for taking the wrong decisions.

As I mentioned in a comment to the original ElReg article - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/15/uk_parliament_rubber_stamps_drip_retention_and_intercept_bill/ - the Open Rights Group page makes it easy to write to each "DRIP Hero" and thank them. The seem to appreciate this, and I have had a number of responses to my email of appreciation.

Another link to Michael Meacher's blog of his short speech, which has gone unreported, - http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2014/07/my-speech-on-the-emergency-data-protection-aka-indiscriminate-mass-surveillance-bill/

Happy or Sad?

How should I feel that my life is so staggeringly boring the data they collect on me will be doing nothing more than using up cycles while they search for interesting stuff.

Actually gathering data on boring people should be considered a crime against the database.

Rebelion by tedium I'll call it, oh you stopped reading already...

So we (the public) are not represented then. At all.

What further evidence does anyone need?

The Wight Choice

Our MP, Andrew Turner (Con), has secured my vote in the next election, as he was one of the mere 33 with a conscience and backbone.

Not a Tory voter by choice, but this issue trumps all others, IMO.

Does that mean we're entitled to all MP meta data?

All equal before law should mean we ought to have access to their meta data too. After all, as public representatives they should have nothing to hide, no?

Sorry, slipped out of reality for a bit. Back in sync now.

amazing speed

when your summer, paid-for holiday's round the corner, eh? :(

Thats going to be one pretty big database file

So how do you store everyones metadata?

I'm guessing SQL would probably be a little overloaded in a very short space of time!

Or are they going to have a database per person in the UK, wow that would be a big SQL array

Gosh isn't the government wonderful

I just wanted to say aren't our MPs great, and the folks in the security services are awfully nice too, don't you think ? Everything they do is just absolutely smashing.

Slowly slowly, little by little...

Our governments are entrenching themselves further and further away from the people, using endless arrays of rules, coercive measures and repressive weapons to increase the chasm of power between individuals and the barely legitimate, increasingly bloated and nebulous organisations that purports to have the authority to govern them at will.

We are being increasingly encouraged to live our lives under permanent semi-voluntary surveillance (smartphones for convenience, Internet connections for work and entertainment, CCTV cameras "for our safety"). Does anyone wonder, nowadays, about the reason why governments are so keen to ensure that everyone has access to an Internet connection?

Meanwhile, the means of coercion and the weapons of repression are getting increasingly sophisticated. We are potentially monitored and tracked all the time. And if we step out of line, there are endless ways in which we can be controlled and repressed. Having read about the smart bullets with a range of 7 km and the drones and all the other repressive technology only available to the organised gangs in uniforms, you can imagine how difficult it would be to make a stand against them-for instance if they were to somehow change their attitude and decide to get a bit heavier with us, as we are told is the case in some so-called primitive dictatorships. If we were to suddenly have a rude awakening from the morass soporific consumerism and mind-addling entertainment in which we are mired, how far would we get trying to stand up to the system? How can the individual hold his own against "the boys in blue/green/grey/name it"?

Metadata vs URLs

For Internet data, that includes a URL... which is effectively the same thing as storing the contents of the communication itself. (with the exception of HTTP POST requests).

No surprise

The legislation is appropriate. It's just the vocal minority that oppose it.

Re: Metadata vs URLs

Storing the url is a step beyond the the requirements in the EU Directive struck down by the CJEU, and there is no other country in the EU having legislated that service providers must retain the urls of visited websites.

I predict that any extension of the definition of metadata beyond what was already found wanting by the CJEU will be struck down as a violation of human rights either by the CJEU under the charter or the ECTHR under the European Convention of Human Rights.

Also Austria's constitutional court has nullified its implementation of the EU Data Retention Directive, and the EU commissioner for justice has indicated that there will be no new attempt to enact a new mandatory data retention regime.

So where does it leave the UK? If no other country is willing to follow, the the only likely effect of the new law is driving business overseas.

The UK government has no power to punish an Austrian or Swedish company for refusing to log its users.

Even a mutual legal assistance request to another state is ineffective, if its law does not require the equivalent retention of metadata.

The following countries in the EU have no data retention laws:

- Germany (struck down by the constitutional court).

- Austria (struck down by the constitutional court).

- Norway (suspended).

Sweden, Netherlands and Iceland have not yet suspended the enforcement of their data retention laws, but these only require retention of the limited categories of trafick data enumerated in the directive, and the period is only six months.

Sauce for the Goose

Of course if phones can be hacked, how long before all the data is trawled by some bent person and secret affairs go public

Liz Truss had an 18 month affair with then culture spokesman Mark Field

Edwina Curry & John Major - who knew

Many others

Plus ANPR cams tracking them

There's nowhere to hide

Don't forget to put LOL at the end of your email

As if any proof was needed

That what any government fears the most are their own citizens. Not terrorists, not foreign powers, not extraterrestrials, and it doesn't matter if the government is "democratic" or "authoritarian". They will always go out of their way to ensure that no smallest bit of vox populi would slip past their ears undetected.

Possibly Illegal Law

I read the judgement of the related ECJ on this matter. I don't think for one moment the MP's have read the ECJ judgement and I do not think they understand what this new law is really about and the true scope of it. It's not just a time extension to the data retention time imposed on telco's; it is far more than that.

This new law - from my non-expert unqualified reading of the ECJ judgment is illegal!

The 1995 EU directive places at its heart the idea of privacy, and that what is stored must be proportionate and the minimum necessary.

The UK government has created a definition of a telcom's communication service which is all encompassing, covering just about every traffic type you can imagine.

They have deliberately misused the ECJ ruling and created an artificial sense of urgency to enable them to create a new law and push it through rapidly without the proper scrutiny and has enabled them to create a new law (soon to be passed on to the statute) which is far more wide reaching - and I would question is illegal - than is require, than is reasonable.