‘Big Brother’ database for phones and e-mails

"About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated 3 billion e-mails are sent every day."

Who is going to monitor that amount of information? Surely they'll have some kind of computer system that flags key words. But by this point, I'm sure that terrorists planning attacks via mobile phone aren't saying "Oi, I put the BOMB in the CAR like my TERRORIST organization told me to."

Instead they'd have a single massive database of personal, sensitive information on everyone who uses mobile technology. And who is going to protect THAT? I'm concerned because over the last year, we've seen data go missing on multiple occasions. Why should we trust them to keep this database safe and secure?

And if this plan went forward, I wonder how many people would give up, or at least greatly reduce, their mobile use?

Echelon is here.

All other debate is only about the physical mechanics

this is just what we hearing about today... this has probably been going on for a long time. civilians need to stand against this and be vocal about it.

It has been going on for a long time! And not transparently either. Why does TFL encourage price breaks to Oyster users who register their cards? So more people will register thinking it's for their benefit, when in reality, it's voluntarily signing up for a tracking device.

But is being vocal enough? Would people be willing to boycott their main means of communication? I think that big brother has backed us into a corner on this one.

Great... because the British government has absolutely no track record of repeatedly losing citizen's personal information. What could possibly go wrong?

...and we're also presuming that the very same infrastructure has the processing power to track down all those criminals who create temporary mail addresses and bin their sim cards after about what - 3 days....

better hope they've got some serious search optimisation...maybe google could help 'em ???

can't wait for this 'imaginary scenario' where someone sends their friends a text saying a show bombed; before a SWAT team descends on her house via their phone's trusty GPS about 2 months later in the dead of night...

d

That would be a giant witch hunt, today its hunting for AL QAEDA in my text messages, tomorrow its calling the founding fathers terrorist. America has a giant weak spot "Consumerism" and thats our down fall. At the end of the day the terrorists win because of the media perpetuates the whole situation. GOOD POST PURDY!.

I guess I better delete Osama Jenkins from my Fav 5..

Truth is that this system has been in place for land lines and email for almost a decade. It would not shock me at all to find out that it has expanded or been upgraded to cover IM, Text messages, Cell Phones or even web cams.

Doesn't Verizon already do this just minus the anti-terrorism motivation?!

"...being planned..."??? Try, being furthered.

All I know is that last night, I was on you tube, watching speeches by Bush about on 911 and him talking about WW3 and my cursor was going crazy and thats never happened before.

bomb, terrorist, 9 11...I think I just got Current TV in trouble....hmmm or maybe myself.

china

I hope this is what gets Bush/Cheney impeached.

I don't care. They've been doing this forever with phone calls and now people care? It's too late. The damage is done.

Things will only get worse and worse and worse and soon we'll be like we are with gas. Remember when gas use to be 90 cents? Then it went on the rise to a $1.50 and people started to get a little annoyed. Then it went to 1.99 and people were like...I wish it were back at a 1.50.

Then it went to 2.30 and people were complaining. 2.45 complain. 2.99 major complaining and people wanted it back at 2.00. No longer asking for it to be at the reasonable price of a $1.50. It settled around 2.99 for a long time going up to $3.05 and back down to 2.80 and people were annoyed because summer was coming up. Then it went to 3.20 and people were just wishing and hoping for it to go back to 2.50....but they were not wanting it to go back further....they settled for something that they had grown use to.

Then it went to 3.30 and to 3.40 and 3.50. People wanted 2.99. It hits 3.70 and people just want 3.20 or something less.....but not back to the $2 or1.50. I say that because if there was gas for 2.50 somewhere that would have a long line. People settle for what they expect to happen and are use to.

with this government spying people have been spied on for ages and now it's becoming more public knowledge and people are becoming more aware and things are changing for the worse and people are willing to give up rights for the government to go back to a certain level of spying instead of getting rid of it all. We have grown accustomed to being looked in on for certain things because the government has made it reasonable in our minds.

We need to reset and be upset and complain about things and have them take it back further to when they were not being intrusive. We should complain and get gas back down to where it should be at the 1.50 mark....but people don't care and they don't want to waste breath and so things get worse because everyone lets it.

So I don't care...things will get worse and people will grumble but they'll do nothing and nothing will change and history will show a quick flash of us as a whole and those children learning about us will think we were as stupid as those who let Germany conquer Europe...how easy it was to see that Germany was up to no good....when we know the story oh so well.

well, that's horrifying.

eh

Invasion of Privacy- They don't have the right to this.

SPAM THEM!

they have been doing this for along time already

Maybe we should fight back by sending snail mail, reading newspapers, and using smoke signals.

By Jove, renbyrd! I think you're on to something!

really , my feelings would be hurt if the gov't decided my awesome phone sex sessions weren't just as worthy of being recorded as some stoner ordering a pizza in kansas.

we all been terrorist. they been did this with the land lines. they just put a tittle on what they do now. they will even read this mes. so what if they wanted to the have th ability to round all of us up like cattle they oru ss# and slaughter us all. thats next

Terrorism. Thats a funny distractionary word they keep throwing around. Theres nothing scarier than whats behind a closed door, and terror being and idea and not something tangible makes it awfully hard to fight. So the fear that they create, the fear of another Pearl Harbor or 9/11, is what will make it so much simpler for them to control us, the commoners.

There's a new trend of text-based banking spreading from the developing world to the developed world, and I wonder what impact this monitoring could have on that data. Since bank records are so well-protected, shouldn't texts that could potentially contain the same kind of information be protected as well?

That awesome now we dont need to estimate at all anymore! Now we can guarentee all possible statistics and facts! The age of theorys and unknowns will evolve into assured events of mutual importance. wait what?! wait nononono

Now we can be observed so that the practices and habits we all currently exhibit can be monitored for the sake of perfection and circumspection.
Dont worry, if you have a blemish or some type of bad habit, the government can help study it with you and maybe help you get rid of that tick, and then wash out all other possibilities of the same tick in the future. YOU KNOW........................... CORRECTED

Having done it for a long time just makes them good at it, doesn't make it right. This is a loss of our personal freedoms guaranteed in the US Constitution, and something that certainly merits more attention than a shrug of the shoulders. If these records are not practical to use in real time crime prevention, then what possible benefit can they have for the average citizen? Put another way, imagine a huge data base including all the phone calls made, time they were made, length of time talking, who did the talking, even just a description of what was talked about. Now imagine all the possible purposes such a data base might have. Any of them sound real good to you?

whats new?...soon there will be no such thing as "PRIVACY"

EYE FOR ONE think its great. Knowing that I can track a serial killing snitchbitch down and rip his head off and deficate down his throat. FACINATING! Some people have the curruptist thoughts when they think nobodys listening. All the lien and cheating dumbasses run around disrespecting each other for glory. Wifeswapping. Nobodys safe in their on mind if there purpose is to harm other peoples household for a f^%%^ joke. The same thang that make u laugh make you cry. Rookies unite lets deal.