The Most Generous Soul

MI5 is building a new £25m e-mail surveillance centre that will have the power to monitor all e-mails and internet messages sent and received in Britain. The government is to require internet service providerssuch as Freeserve and AOLto have “hardwire” links to the new computer facility so that messages can be traced across the internet. The security service and the police will still need Home Office permission to search for e-mails and internet trafficbut they can apply for general warrants that would enable them to intercept communications for a company or an organisation. The new computer centrecodenamed GTAC — government technical assistance centre — which will be up and running by the end of the year inside MI5’s London headquartershas provoked concern among civil liberties groups. “With this facilitythe government can track every website that a person visitswithout a warrantgiving rise to a culture of suspicion by association,” said Caspar Bowdendirector of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. The government already has powers to tap phone lines linking computersbut the growth of the internet has made it impossible to read all material. By requiring service providers to install cables that will download material to MI5the government will have the technical capability to read everything that passes over the internet. Home Office officials say the centre is needed to tackle the use of the internet and mobile phone networks by terrorists and international crime gangs.Charles Clarkthe minister in charge of the spy centre projectsaid it would allow police to keep pace with technology. “Hardly anyone was using the internet or mobile phones 15 years ago,” a Home Office source said. “Now criminals can communicate with each other by a huge array of devices and channels and can encrypt their messagesputting them beyond the reach of conventional eavesdropping.” There has been an explosion in the use of the internet for crime in Britain and across the worldleading to fears in western intelligence agencies that they will soon be left behind as criminals abandon the telephone and resort to encrypted e-mails to run drug rings and illegal prostitution and immigration rackets. The new spy centre will decode messages that have been encrypted. Under new powers due to come into force this summerpolice will be able to require individuals and companies to hand over computer “keys”special codes that unlock scrambled messages. There is controversy over how the costs of intercepting internet traffic should be shared between government and industry. Experts estimate that the cost to Britain’s 400 service providers will be £30m in the first year. Internet companies say that this is too expensiveespecially as many are making losses. About 15m people in Britain have internet access. Legal experts have warned that many are unguarded in the messages they send or the material they downloadbelieving that they are safe from prying eyes. “The arrival of this spy centre means that Big Brother is finally here,” said Norman BakerLiberal Democrat MP for Lewes. “The balance between the state and individual privacy has swung too far in favour of the state.” Source: agitprop.org.au