Anyone believe her

[youngmafbog]

The government still presses on with this but is it really necessary, dont the Police already have powers if required and authorised by a judge?

May says :
"It is absolutely not government wanting to read everybody's emails - we will not be looking at every web page everybody has looked at."
Anyone believe her? I dont and I certainly would not want something like this in place if we had another New Labour. Blair would have loved this.

http://news.sky.com/story/1019836/may-defends-plans-to-track-crime-online

[ZedBloke]

Politicians should never have this kind of power. Too dangerous, cue the NTHNTF brigade!

[rojash]

"I dont and I certainly would not want something like this in place if we had another New Labour. Blair would have loved this. "

Absolutely. But I think it's a danger whichever party is in. Take the mildest-mannered, most liberal person, make the Home Secretary, and they seem to instantly become a cross between the Gestapo and the Stasi.

[Canary42]

She's a politician (and a Coalition one to boot) - of course I don't believe her.

[jake-the-peg]

Well it will definately help us catch incompetent terrorists. Those who can't use internet proxies, encryption, BBS systems etc.

Actually - perhaps this isn't the agenda here

Have you thought that a lot of this information may already be being obtained illegally but can't be presented in court and this is a move to legitimise it?

Just a thought

[Zeuhl]

^
Good point
all those people at GCHQ must be doing something

[jno]

good point, jake.

I don't think government is going to have the capacity to read everyone's email. The figure a few years ago was that 2 million emails were sent every minute and that's just in the UK. I expect texts and tweets and so forth have incrreased this number substantially.

[naomi24]

I was reading this morning about the number of people in various official bodies who are projected to have access to this. 'The Government' covers a wide area. This is a slippery slope. Shades of '1984'.

[pdq1]

Sometimes on TV you see rooms with enormous bookcases holding thousands of books. I think to myself in the course of a year how many are taken out and read.

Surely the similarity with e-mails will also follow. Trillions of e-mails sitting in an archive with nobody reading them. Verbiage of the highest order.

[ichkeria]

"Sometimes on TV you see rooms with enormous bookcases holding thousands of books"

I've even seen them in real life!
There aren't enough people probably in the world, never mind GCHQ, or wherever, to read absolutely all the emails ever sent or look at all the web sites ever visited. So in that respect yes I do believe her.

[bazwillrun]

"This is a slippery slope. Shades of '1984'. "

we are already well along the slope and approaching the finishing line

All the billions of emails dont have to be read by a human.

Extremely sophisticated software algorithms go through them looking for keywords/phrases/names etc etc, the same way that banks flag unusual trading patterns on your account to flag up possible fraudulent card use

[Quizmonster]

"Blair would have loved this," eh? E-mails existed during his time in office, you know, so why didn't he do it? Since neither he nor his successor did, surely a case can be made for our privacy being in safer hands under Labour than it now is under the Tories...not the coalition, as the LibDems object to it.

[rojash]

"I don't think government is going to have the capacity to read everyone's email. "
But we've already seen how the police target legitimate political activists. What's to stop the government spying on anyone who simply disagrees with them (something that we are all entitled to do in a democracy).

[youngmafbog]

Blair loved controlling the masses as did Noo labour. He just never got round to it I suspect or knew the furor it would cause.

I too am very disappointed with the Tories, on one hand they bleat about freedom of speech and on the other they want to monitor us. Very ill thought out policy.

[ichkeria]

Not only aren't there enough people or enough hours in the day to read all the emails people send and check all the web sites people visit, but there also isn't the capability - or the need - to monitor all the emails people send and check all the web sites people visit. Can you imagine the sort of system that did that? You need to target people or subjects otherwise you soon have chaos.
Whether you then believe that such targeting is necessary or advisable is another matter ... It comes down basically to the same arguments as those for and against CCTV cameras, DNA databases etc ...

[Quizmonster]

"Never got round to it"? What, after a whole decade as Prime Minister? And, if it was just a case of knowing "the furore it would cause", that at least proves he was more switched on to the electorate's views than the current lot!

[LazyGun]

Ichkeria is right - this does come down to the same argument as are often aired for CCTVs and DNA databases.

How much of your personal and civic freedoms and liberties are you prepared to cede to the state on the grounds of "protection from terrorism" ?

The papers witter on about Leveson regulations "muzzling" the free press - this proposal is a far greater threat to individual freedoms and the notion of a free and democratic society.

It is bad enough as it currently stands, with a guy being found guilty of a "serious and credible" threat to blow up Robin Hood Airport following a tweet where he expressed his exasperation at the snow impeding on his travel plans - That was a public tweet - how much worse if they start scanning emails and the like and applying the same over the top reactions to communications where individuals have every reasonable expectation of privacy?

[jno]

but that's the thing, rojash - they're going to be targeting people they already suspect. This is I think more or less what jake suggested higher up. And it's also my answer to the OP: yes, I believe her, I don't think they're going to read everyone's emails. The planet's not big enough to house the staff required to read everyone's emails.

I'm not defending the proposals, just answering the original question.