Plan would create huge expansion of government surveillance
Posted: July 29, 200810:04 pm Eastern© 2008 WorldNetDaily
LONDON -- Britain's MI5 intelligence service has persuaded the Home Office to get government approval for a massive increase in surveillance in Britain, already the most-watched nation in the West, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
In London, every citizen already is captured on camera an average of 400 times a day. An increasing number of the cameras are directly linked to MI5's state-of-the-art computers in the basement of headquarters overlooking the Thames. Billions of images are already stored there.
But now secret plans by the Security Service and Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist command want to detail every phone call, e-mail, text message and online purchase to aid the fight against terrorism. Four billion e-mails are sent every day in the UK. Last year 67 billion text messages were transmitted
The new plans, if ratified by Parliament in the autumn, would allow the police and intelligence services to access the precise time a phone call was made, the number dialed, the length of the call and, in the case of cell phones, the location of the handset to within an accuracy of a few hundred yards. MI5 scientists, working with post office technicians, have now provided equipment that could handle the new demands.
At the same time Britain's DNA database, already the world's largest, would be updated. Anyone who is arrested – even if proven to be innocent later – will have their DNA not only stored "forever," but also circulated "on a need to know basis" to all law enforcement agencies and "all those entitled under the Investigating Powers Act." The act allows local authorities to investigate minor issues such as litter dumping.
Computers already positioned on all Britain's major roads will be updated so they can check every car within four seconds as it travels anywhere in the country. The details will be transmitted to all local police stations to stop a suspect car. The stations are automatically linked to armed anti-terrorist teams now present in increasing numbers around the UK.
But privacy watchdog Richard Thomas has warned that the MI5 demand for new powers is "a genuine threat to the British way of life."
Source: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70888