Spy chiefs are pressing ahead with secret plans to monitor all internet use and telephone calls in Britain despite an announcement by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, of a ministerial climbdown over public surveillance.GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, is developing classified technology to intercept and monitor all e-mails, website visits and social networking sessions in Britain. The agency will also be able to track telephone calls made over the internet, as well as all phone calls to land lines and mobiles.The £1 billion snooping project — called Mastering the Internet (MTI) — will rely on thousands of “black box” probes being covertly inserted across online infrastructure.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6211101.eceJacqui’s secret plan to ‘Master the Internet’
Spy chiefs are already spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a mass internet surveillance system, despite Jacqui Smith’s announcement earlier this week that proposals for a central warehouse of communications data had been dumped on privacy grounds.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/03/gchq_mti/