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Surveillance State Update
Via Alex Massie, the Telegraph reports that Britain's surveillance state is slated to grow ever bigger and ever broader thanks to proposed new rules that would 
require all telephone and internet hosts to keep detailed records of their customers' activities and turn them over to pretty much anyone who feels like seeing them:
Despite widespread opposition over Britain's growing surveillance society, 653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.
They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to access the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.
....Although most private firms already hold details of every customer's private calls and emails for their own business purposes, most only do so on an ad hoc basis and only for a period of several months.
The new rules, known as the Intercept Modernisation Programme, will not only force communication companies to keep their records for longer, but to expand the type of data they keep to include details of every website their customers visit — effectively registering every click online.
....The latest figures on the use of the RIPA legislation by public bodies, show that state bodies including town halls made 519,260 requests last year — one every minute — to spy on the phone records and email accounts of members of the public.
The number of requests has risen by 44 per cent in two years to a rate of 1,422 new cases every day, leading to claims of an abuse of using the powers for trivial matters such as littering and dog fouling.
519,000 requests in a single year? That's more than 1% of the adult population of Great Britain. Terrorism is the putative reason for the new regulations, but if Britain truly has that many suspected terrorists on its soil, they might as well just give up and surrender now.
Obligatory Orwell Reference
George Orwell was an Englishman and proud of it. He must be rolling over in his grave.
On the positive side: this erases any doubts I may have had about the wisdom of the American Revolution.
Disturbing, but awesome poster
Man, the irony is palpable. But I do love love love the poster.
Don't feel superior to the Brits
At least they disclose what they're up to. "Our" National Security Agency compiles the same information and discloses it to god knows where.
Considering our DHS is
Considering our DHS is headed by Spy Cam Jan, it's only a matter of time.
Plus the warrantless wiretapping, plus the various forms of cyber surveillance, plus the documented but hush hush partnering between the NSA and Fleet Labs ( http://www.fleetlabs.com/ ), the former CIA/DARPA Spinoff.
Britain has always been
Britain has always been overrated as a democracy. Most of the soldiers who fought in WWI were not eligible for the vote until the Representation of the People Act of 1918 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918 which also gave extended suffrage to married women over 30. Full suffrage was not achieved until 1928. Plus Britain's censorship and libel laws are all much stricter than those in the U.S., for example truth is not a defense to libel.
On paper King George V was in 1910 every bit the theoretical tyrant vis a vis the ordinary Briton as his ancestor George III was in 1776 vis a vis the ordinary American colonist, which is why Americans needed both to get rid of their king AND adopt a Bill of Rights to protect them from the Government. So these developments are only a surprise to those who view British government through a pair of rose-colored glasses, until a century ago 'democracy' was quite literally a dirty word in most British political circles.
The only way to stop this is
The only way to stop this is to help the conservatives take power. The worst of this has happened under Labour's watch, and only when they are in the opposition might they actually oppose such horrors. Better yet, of course, would be to destroy Labour as a party altogether.
Apparently the government
Apparently the government has abandoned the plan after the uproar:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ministers-cancel-big-broth...
A British software engineer
could write a plug-in for firefox that would work like a google bot and explore every link on every webpage visited. This would work in the background or after firefox is idle, for 10 minutes. If used by millions of British internet users, this would greatly increase the amount of data that would be needed to be processed by the terror sleuths and make the results of their search pretty much meaningless.
John D. McDonald in one of
John D. McDonald in one of his novels recommended covering your tracks by putting so much data out that it couldn't be analyzed, but this may be unrealistic. The type of equipment the NSA was using in San Francisco, and is probably still using, can monitor enormous amount of data in real time.
Surveillance State USA
The Brits don't have anything on us Yanks regarding the Surveillance State. Unfortunately, there are no effective checks and balances to the inevitable abuses. For an example, see my 7-15-09 letter to FL Gov Charlie Crist requesting the appointment of a special prosecutor as suggested by FL Assistant Attorney General Joslyn Wilson to investigate my charges of illegal electronic surveillance by Florida law enforcement at:
http://governmentspying.blogspot.com/2009/07/assistant-attorney-general-... .
Gov. Crist still hasn't replied to my letter.