People Noticing That New UK Email Retention Laws Might Violate Privacy Rights
from the you-think? dept
There's been an ongoing push around the world by law enforcement to require ISPs retain certain types of data, in case it comes in handy later for criminal investigations. Of course, these demands come from the wishful thinking department. The cost associated with such data retention is tremendous, and all it does is create a huge mass of data -- often making it more difficult to find the useful information. In the UK, they've put in place new data retention laws that will require ISPs to retain records on every email sent or received in the UK for a year. It's not the contents of the email -- but just the data on that email. That, alone, though, seems like a pretty big violation of privacy, and people are starting to point that out.The problem is this fanciful wish by law enforcement types, that actually is quite similar to the ideas among some marketing/advertising folks, that if they could just access all this data, life would be so easy. They're wrong, of course, but even if it were true, the reason we believe in privacy and rights of individuals is that it's an important part of a free society. Law enforcement isn't supposed to be easy in a free society. If the goal of society was to make law enforcement's life easy, we'd get rid of all privacy rights entirely. The excuse that this is somehow "necessary" for law enforcement to do their job is a lie. It may mean they have to investigate crimes in different ways, but no blanket removal of privacy is ever "necessary."
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Filed Under: data retention, email, privacy, uk
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personal data
For details, see http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/11/end-of-road-for-personal-data.php
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what about
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Email
I can't agree with forcing ISPs to retain all email, but I could see law enforcement putting in snoopers to copy unencrypted traffic for later use.
Don't like it? Use encrypted email or web-based messaging systems.
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Re: Email
Used to be (in US) that a warrant was required for this. It has something to do with the Bill of Rights. But recently these are have been treated as though they were only guidelines.
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�Excessive Government Snooping�
Businesses will be in serious jeopardy as to leaks regarding intended contracts etc.
Signed
Carl Barron
Chairman of agpcuk
Action Group for the Protection of Communities UK
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technical workaround
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LMFAO
AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA
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Re: technical workaround
You're naive if you don't realize that the British govt. could get whatever info it wanted from Panama through the U.S. govt.. The U.S. still has one of Panama's ex-leaders rotting in prison right now to remind the Panamanians of their place.
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