Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
NEW LEGISLATION reportedly being considered by the British government, giving it the power to monitor all phone calls and emails of people in the UK, may also give it the power to monitor the internet usage of Irish people.
A report from the Sunday Times says the Home Office is considering the move as part of its efforts to tackle terrorism and organised crime, and may introduce legislation allowing it to access logs – and potentially the data – of those communications.
The legislation will reportedly mean British internet firms will be required to allow a British intelligence agency, Government Communications HQ, to gain access to communications carried by those firms in real time.
The BBC’s version on the story suggested the legislation would require GCHQ to access the content of any emails or messages without first getting a warrant, but that warrants would not be required for GCHQ to obtain logs of the information held.
This means that although a warrant would be needed to obtain the text of an email sent between two people, it would be able to access records showing when emails were sent between two people, on demand.
Because it is not clear at present whether the legislation will apply simply to internet service providers, or to any companies which operate industrial-level connections, it is possible that the new laws may have an impact on Irish users.
TJ McIntyre of Digital Rights Ireland said if it applied to ISPs, providers who worked on both sides of the border – such as UTV Internet, to name but one – could be made subject to the rules, and that customers in the Republic of Ireland could then have their communications subject to interception.
“Data retention, as it is, is already an illegitimate form of surveillance,” McIntyre said, commenting that such monitoring could allow parties to “build up a picture of your social life, professional activities, personal activities” based on profiles of mobile phone, email or internet use.
“Extending it further to things like Twitter would have the effect of leaving, literally, no domain free from pervasive surveillance.”
McIntyre said the legislation could lead to internet service providers to “look inside every packet [of electronic data] for the purposes of monitoring users in real time, like steaming open and inspecting every envelope”.
If the legislation was applied at a more industrial level, it could result in the traffic of almost every Irish internet user being monitored – as virtually all Irish traffic to overseas internet servers is carried on high-bandwidth connections through the UK.
If the operators of those cables were subject to the legislation, therefore, it would mean that any international traffic – which accounts for all but a fraction of Irish internet usage – could be subject to interception.
McIntyre expressed reservations that the Irish government may not look to engage with its British counterpart in examining the potential ramifications for Irish internet users.
He said the Irish government had not publicly objected, for example, when the UK built a listening station which was able to intercept international phone calls made from Ireland.
In 2008 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the British system – which saw Irish phone conversations intercepted as they were broadcast from Holyhead to London, before being relayed to the intended recipient in another country – was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
2012 = 1984
True and very worrying!
What a thoroughly dumb comment. Not surprised to see that Ryan agreed though, that guy aint exactly genius material.
Maybe you just didn’t understand Anton.
@Anton If you disagree with him, how about you say why, instead of engaging in what seems little more than a pointless ad hominem attack?
Oh so very true
I didnt understand his meaning? Really? Ok. So let me be clear: comparing UK surveillance legislation to Orwells 1984 is alarmist, inaccurate, and just plain dumb!!! Is that clear enough? If anyone needs to actually ask me to elaborate, to actually discuss and provide an argument to support my assertion, then Im afraid the label of conspiracy nutjob may fit.
The similarities of the ever growing nanny state and elite in the world is what is most alarming.
I think you’ve missed the point of Orwell’s stories, that or perhaps you have your own interpretation that is contrary to popular belief.
@Anton Again with the ad hominems. I guess you don’t have any argument to back up your bluster.
Tom: as Finkelstein wiped the floor with Dershowitz in their famous debate, Dershowitz only real reply was to accuse his opponent of Ad Hom attacks. It is the refuge of the dipstick.
@Anton – you don’t seem to be wiping any floors in this particular debate. It is very clear to most people that there are concrete similarities to be drawn between surveillance employed in the UK and Orwells 1984. The UK has the highest number of CCTV cameras per capita and if this cannot induce images of Big Brother in your mind then I am not quite sure what will. Instead of firing silly insults at people – simply state why you believe this not to be the case or at least try to engage in a more meaningful form of debate.
Jimmy just to clarify: this isnt a debate. As I said, the whole comparison is so dumb that to engage in a substantive dabate is a sign of absolute stupidity.
Now lets move on to the next “debate”: 9/11 inside job. Anyone???
Snearing and mocking doesn’t make you look any better, Anton. Ad hominem attacks are the only way someone with no cogent argument can participate in a debate, irrespective of who is accused of using them. By the way, I don’t appreciate being called a dipstick, whether by inference or otherwise.
It’s an excuse to legalise what they already do…
Probably true
Good thing the real bad guys don’t know how to use encryption/VPNs. Oh, wait.
At the same time it was discovered the yanks were monitoring all data entering the US, like their special room at the AT&T building in San Francisco. It was also discovered on their national laboratory site in oak ridge where they have the jaguar supercomputer that does things like weather models, climate sims and NASA stuff etc.. That there is a second secret supercomputer called leopard which is 2 or 4 times more powerful than jaguar, designed and exclusively used for performing brute force attacks on encrypted data.
Collie;
Brute forcing encrypted data is fine if its decrypting suspious communications and the time and processing power it takes means that the hacks are focused on suspious comms, but it requires extra intelligence to highlight them.
The extra intelligence does not come from data mining, unfortunately those in charge don’t realise this.
It won’t pass or i will start a campaign to challenge it at the EU Courts
Allegedly, and I repeat allegedly, the massive new NSA data center will be able to brute force a *substantially* larger amount of encrypted data, including comparing encrypted data against previously collected data and brute forcing 256-bit AES. Allegedly. Project Meshnet FTW.
This is very serious and should be resisted. When governments want to control so much we should be very worried.
Only just heard?
In before some feeble minded fool uses the ‘if you have nothing to hide’ argument.
I’m pre-empting it with this – http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056587548
There going to have to build a lot of prisons for all those opinions
The yanks have been doing this for years without warrants and there building a mega datacenter in middle America the biggest ever. Every email, phone call, tweet and everything else is inspected by data mining software and it’s no secret.
Collie….mate enough already, paranoid little weirdo.
@ Anton Meade
Here`s a link to wired.com
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1
The bad guys could just send an old fashioned letter… Take that supercomputer!
Sean sherlock
Where is that copy of 1984…
This is bullshit…you mean to tell me that the British intelligence doesn’t know who the terrorists, crime gangs are or what…this is clearly going beyond gathering info on these people.
“Uncle Sam” seeking total control of it’s flock.
I find this idea very worrying.
What next?
Micro-chipping of human beings?
Probably
Flood em with horseshit.
Wow this is very worrying. For want of a better word, the US and the UK are “hijacking” the terrorist events of the past as an inexcusable reason for these laws.
It’s what both nations are all about. Democracy me arse.
Remember when cctv started being put everywhere and the mushwit masses said, ” if your not doing anything wrong, then why should it bother you?”. It’s a police state and there is no turning back now.
GCHQ has been monitoring telephone calls, both fixed line and cell for decades. Internet traffic has been monitored since 1995. What is now proposed is to create a veil of spurious legality over the process so that any evidence can be used in prosecutions.
Indeed so. This legislation will certainly appeal to FG. To save money, they could out-source the surveillance work to GCHQ which has decades of experience in this area. ..
why do people think theyre not doing this already?
April Fools?
These proposals must be resisted, also by Irish politicians.
Scary stuff
I have nothing to hide :P they can read my boring smut, could not care less.
Ok. So let me be clear: comparing UK surveillance legislation to Orwells 1984 is alarmist, inaccurate, and just plain dumb!!! Is that clear enough? If anyone needs to actually ask me to elaborate, to actually discuss and provide an argument to support my assertion, then Im afraid the label of conspiracy nutjob may fit.
The concern is that, with a growing loss of privacy and increase in surveilance capabilities, a government that is not quite trustworthy could come to power and abuse the information. This is how Ingsoc gained power in 1984.
Nobody is saying it will happen but the concern is a legitimate one as attempted “errosions of freedom” are already observable with numerous global internet censorship agendas rising.
You may call us conspiracy theorists if you’d like but to avoid criticism and concern of such routes is to invite disaster and make a bed for it when it stays.
You are obviously a fan of ever-increasing state intrusion into the lives of ordinary people. I’d also hazard a guess you haven’t read 1984, because if you had, you would at least have come away understanding its most salient points.
For what it is worth, I’m one of these people (conspiracy nutjobs if you wish) that believes the state has no business in my life except if I invite them in or commit a crime. I’m also one of these “conspiracy nutjobs” who believe that people who accept state intrusion into their lives and particularly those who bully others into accepting it with puerile “conspiracy nutjob” comments are ignoramuses who deserve everything coming to them.
People really do get politics they deserve if these clowns are voted in again.. Tin Pot Dictators .. Guess they’re fare game them who they sleep with how many rows they have etc. Go on the tabloids get them
I take it the spy nonsense was under the north conflict .. So the media have a job to do find out where it is at now who (capable!!) of dealing with it.. Could media prepare options and search alternative options. Promotion and someone to fund IT developers to build away from this extreme far right shit. Its just internet need funds to protect business also. Business will have to go back to post. Or are they going to mix business with mad men
What was that about?
See what happens when we dont pay the household tax? :D
To be honest guys Everything one does on the internet is logged since its inception – so this is nothing to worry about ….
For the tip of the iceberg
Read “Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping” (1971), Faber and Faber
By General Sir Frank Edward Kitson GBE, KCB, MC and Bar, DL
1972 he was promoted Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his operational service in Northern Ireland the previous year.
Has anyone been watching Person of Interest?
While I’d not exactly be happy to be monitored, you have to realise that unless they’re planning on increasing GCHQ staff to around a million people, the chances of you personally being monitored or about as likely as winning the lotto. Not that that makes it right, but just saying, I doubt they’re planning on going for East German levels of agent recruitment.
I honestly thought the Times Online report was an April Fool at first glance
Everything on ur pc is logged into a file which is accessible through dos commands. I found this out by accident. Its microsoft for you. Its all there. Every single site .
Sorry, Brendan, but that is just not true! There is a web history and a web cache, both which are designed to make surfing the web easier and faster. Practically every browser uses them and you’ll find them on every modern operating system. Both can be cleared down whenever you wish.
Thanks you seem to know more than me , on the outset . I am not talking about a simple clear browser user friendly GUI this is at the root of the operating system , it cant be accessed by user friendly screens , you have to be quite adept at using dos commands to be able to retrieve the info from this cleverly hidden file .
Tom: as Finkelstein wiped the floor with Dershowitz in their famous debate, Dershowitz only real reply was to accuse his opponent of Ad Hom attacks. It is the refuge of the dipstick.
Like David says…..?
Let them monitor what they like, if you’ve nothing to hide then theres no need to be worrying about it
have your say