Comments on: U.K. to monitor, store all social-network traffic?

Government's proposed Interception Modernisation Programme would enforce tracking and retention of all U.K. citizens' Web communications, including IM conversations.

[freemarket--2008]

Big brother is alive and well in Europe it seems.

[iff2mastamatt]

1984 25 years later, I guess.

[ddhboy]

And people talk about the US. If there's ever a government more paranoid about its citizens, its the U.K.

[jemiller0]

And people used to complain about the communists? The U.K. government is running amuck.

[kannuc]

it's very disappointing that the Brits don't see it as a threat to individual freedom, but not surprising, this is the country that has more surveillance cameras than any other and the typical Brit is constantly being watched - Big Brother is watching

[davidwillisw]

adolf and joe s would be so proud of the brit government!! i thought that's what ww2 was fought over,freedom!!

[irishpresident]

The EU is nothing but total corruption.

It has taken over the UK since 1972, in various ways.

Queen and PM Brown, blair and his predessors are all guilty of giving partially and nearly totally the soverignty of England or better known and obviously the island of Britain over to the EU, they should all be put before the courts on the evidence of treason.

My gosh seeing how Blair won, and then seeing this.

The Queen is the definate criminal, she is head of state. She may have no power. But like all other nations or states they have a head of state that has some power to veto crap like this, even if very small.

[Imalittleteapot]

I think it's vital that someone spy on the gov. Their phone lines should be tapped and they should be videoed everywhere they go too. How do I know one of them isn't going to blow something up?

If they want to spy on me that's fine. I'd ask them if they'd like to come over and sniff my crotch too. Do they want to know what that smells like too? Someone should ask them. It's the only way to make sure they know everything about me and what I'm up to after all. How do you know if I'm sleeping around if you don't smell my crotch to make sure Gov. It's the only way to stop crime!

[ChrisRM]

Have no fear, if history tells us anything about the British Government and IT projects it tells us that it will take 5 years longer than expected, cost 20X more than budgetted and when it is de-scopped and jemmied into place it will be discovered that it doesn't actually work very well if at all.

Congrats to the Big Consultancy firms. Still it does spread vast amount of cash into the economy!

Oh and another thing, now that we all know about this monitoring including the wrong doers of the world dont you think that they will use other mechanisms and high encryption method to protect there electronic communication. Imagine the processor power needed to de-crypt every email if we all got an encryption key and actually used it for all our emails even the silly ones. There is no way they would be able to make any actual use of any information they might get in a timely enough fashion to stop a terrorist attack from happening unless they targetted specific sources and destination, which brings us back to where we are now.

[ferretboy88]

England already has so many video camera add this and you have big brother watching you.

[JCPayne]

Yep. That's where you find the terrorists... Blogs-R-Us.... lol

[Cabloona]

'If the government wants to make us safer....?' The Cambridge chap meant that rhetorically I hope. Politicians ensure their own safety. They have no interest in ours except where it coincides with this 'prime drective'. This latest outrage is just another expression of EU law-making. In England parliament has no more power than a local council. Its function is to implement 'directives'. Importantly, however, it has an obligation to conceal the truth in that it must behave as if laws owe their origins to government policy - hence the charade of 'debate', shielding Brussels from criticism and, they hope, preventing people from joining the dots.

'Honourable members' - irrespective of political allegiance - understand not to identify in open debate the real source of these assaults on our freedom. As a testament to the corruption of our political class this willingness to play along couldn't be bettered. As to the Queen I feel desperately sorry for are those naive enough to believe the her hamstrung by politics and as such unable to act in defence of the nation. Even now they petiton her, reminding the monarch very respectfully of the Coronation Oath she took, urging her to speak out about the treason being committed in her name. Naturally she would reply if she could......

There are no terrorists. The only ones you need fear are those you elect, those bought and paid for by vested interests and who will sell their mothers so long as they are safe when the brown stuff hits the fan and final push to world government begins.