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Tories and Labour may team up to defeat Lib-Dems over Data Bill
Labour and the Conservatives could unite to push through a controversial communications bill despite Lib Dem objections.
The Communications Data Bill would give police and security services access, without a warrant, to details of all online communication in the UK - such as the time, duration, originator and recipient, and the location of the device from which it was made. It would also give access to all Britons' web browsing history and details of messages sent on social media.
The bill was previously dropped after a split in the coalition. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg had said it was "not going to happen" while his party was in government.
But Labour leader Ed Miliband has said that "if he [the PM] wants a communications bill, we'll help him get it through".
Details at BBC website
The Communications Data Bill would give police and security services access, without a warrant, to details of all online communication in the UK - such as the time, duration, originator and recipient, and the location of the device from which it was made. It would also give access to all Britons' web browsing history and details of messages sent on social media.
The bill was previously dropped after a split in the coalition. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg had said it was "not going to happen" while his party was in government.
But Labour leader Ed Miliband has said that "if he [the PM] wants a communications bill, we'll help him get it through".
Details at BBC website
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Comments
I knew the Woolwich incident would be used to push this ridiculous bill.
They will be banging on about ID cards again soon.
In fact, this could go some way to killing democracy, as who wants to vote for a party that is willing to over-react to this level over an isolated incident?
If Labour have any sense of what is right and wrong, they will side with the Lib Dems and kill this bill off.
But we keep being told that the boundary changes help Labour.
Why would Labour want to wreak revenge on a party that apparently helped them out?
What a silly comment that is.
Back to the subject at hand, Labour proves once again that it is an authoritarian party -- having learned precisely nothing from Iraq.
Do the Police and security services think these new powers are required, and may possibly prevent some terrorist actions in the future?
If the answer from these people who work in that area and know what they're talking about is 'Yes', then that's good enough for me.
There are lots of things the police would wish to have that would make their life easier, prevent crime in the future. I suspect they'd be for a DNA data base for a start and national identity cards. Are you for those too?
Yes, I'd have no problem with that at all
If you have nothing to hide.............
I think the problem is that there have to be checks and balances. Extra powers are fine but there is the danger they will be abused. The classic example i remember recently is when the police used anti-terrorism powers to arrest an elderly man who heckled Tony Blair at a Labour Party conference.
The police and security services are divided on this issue. There are always those who want more data, whether that data is of any use or not. They think having an all seeing eye will mean they miss less - they obviously never watched Lord Of The Rings
Then there are those who realise that access to massive amounts of additional data isn't really going to help. Pretty much every attack that's succeeded has shown that there was plenty of warning signs before the attack happened, but there were ignored. The data was already there.
This legislation could also further erode public trust in both services, and make it less likely for informants to come forward, which is how many of these terrorist groups are discovered and stopped.
People like those two pieces of scum who killed Lee Rigby quite openly say they're at war with us, it's high time we got serious about fighting it.
Then bought and sold by newspapers. For naughty knicker vicar scandals.
They also admitted - eventually, after having it dragged out of them - that the 7/7 bombers were under surveillance, so we can assume legislation in place in 2005 was quite adequate too.
The security services may want extra powers but that doesn't mean they need extra powers.
And as I asked earlier - how would giving the security services extra powers have stopped Woolwich?
I'm not saying it would have, although since there have been several arrests, it's fair to assume the suspects MAY have been communicating online.
If not this time, these extra powers may stop the next terrorist act. Or the one after.
Provided they would be used rarely for purposes of national security , and not routinely, I cant see a problem with it.
There's also things that the Bill/Act depends on but which aren't subject to the same scrutiny or controls, many of which can be changed at the stroke of a ministerial pen, e.g. a schedule attached to the Act that can be changed by a Statutory Instrument or Order, and if not enough people are awake at the time, those just get waved through.
Edit: the point being that you cannot give them an inch because they already took the mile.
There is never a guarantee that it won't be used "off-label", as it were. Councils already abuse powers granted to them under RIPA, instead of using them for serious criminal breaches they get used to see whether you're really inside a school's catchment area.
Since such use cannot be guaranteed to be prevented, we cannot allow this bill to go through. Security services already have enough powers to do their jobs.