e-ignite

Apparently, the UK government has suggested that it may require you to hand over your private keys so that they can read all your secured email!

They are using the familliar anti-terrorism argument to justify it. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that at all.

Yes, it’s important to protect the country from terrorism, but that does not give them the right to read everyone’s email. If they want to intercept postal mail, it takes a court order. Likewise if they want to tap a telephone. But since it’s transmitted over the internet, it’s ok for them to see it all? No. It’s not.

The current UK Government have done a load to erode the privacy of internet users. When it took presidency of the EU, it passed a Europe-Wide law stating that ISPs have to retain all web traffic and email data for every single user for a period of up to two years! Again, the “counter-terrorism” argument was used, but I don’t believe that gives them the right. Every person has the right to privacy and without very good reason (and I’m talking specific reason here) then nobody has the right to remove that.

I am not saying that I agree with terrorism though - far from it. It’s the most pointless, barbaric act possible, and I know that there is a genuine need for intelligence to stop any of these atrocities from being commited. But that is the key word: intelligence. This means that the law enforcement agencies should be identifying suspects and suspicious communication patterns, investigating them and then seeking authority to intercept communications. It should not be a blanket policy of spy-on-everyone and hope-we-get-lucky.

They really need to re-think this one.