Powers for the police to access everyone’s web browsing histories and to hack into phones are to be expanded under the latest version of the snooper’s charter legislation.The extension of police powers contained in the investigatory powers bill published on Tuesday indicates the determination of the home secretary, Theresa May, to get her legislation on to the statute book by the end of this year despite sweeping criticism by three separate parliamentary committees in the past month.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/01/snoopers-charter-to-extend-police-access-to-phone-and-internet-dataAlso see:The snooper’s charter shows the government’s total contempt for privacy
The government proposed a fundamental shift in the relationship between citizens, the internet and the state in its 300-page draft investigatory powers bill. Under the law, now christened the snooper’s charter, almost every digital communication and movement would be logged by telecommunications companies, intercepted by intelligence agencies and subject to scrutiny. But when the government introduced the bill into parliament on Tuesday, it demonstrated not only its disregard for privacy but its contempt for that other key pillar of British society: democracy.The bill contains some of the most intrusive surveillance powers imaginable, including some that are not currently found in any other country in the world. Cyber security is to be sacrificed at the altar of “national security”: government hacking would become legal, bulk datasets collected and mined, and encrypted services subject to state restrictions.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/01/proposed-snoopers-charter-shows-governments-contempt-for-privacy