02.24
ISPA, at their annual awards ceremony, have cite the UK’s presidency of the EU as ‘Villain of the Year’ in regard to it’s fixation with enforcing a fairly ridiculous view over the retention of phone and internet data. Basically, the UK has argued that internet service providers and telecoms operators will have to keep details of their subscribers’ communications for up to two years.
The Home Office said this in it’s defence,
“Agreement on retaining communications data places a vital tool against terrorism and serious crime in the hands of law enforcement agencies across Europe,” he (Home Secretary Charles Clarke) told Ispa on 10 January.
“Modern criminality crosses borders and seeks to exploit digital technology. The measure is an important step in delivering the right to citizens across the EU to live in peace and free from the negative impact of terrorism and serious crime.”
I think we’re letting too much of our freedoms be legislated like this. Whilst no-one would say that combating terrorism is not a worthy cause I do think that a lot of people will start shouting when this data is used to pursue other investigations – and you can be fairly certain it will be. ISPA presenting press-attracting awards is one thing, but perhaps they should have lobbied a little bit harder and more publicly prior to this being approved by the European Parliament on Tuesday…
Technorati Tags: technology
We need to educate our youth about privacy and history. Today’s young people believe that they must expose every aspect of their lives to some all powerful government in order to be “protected”. This just isn’t true. Terrorist have actually accomplished their goal in that respect, chistling away at our ways of life, lowering standards, embedding fear in our youth, causing governement officials to do more to harm the nations mental health than the terrorist themselves.