El Reg reports that the coalition government in the UK wants to push through a new surveillance law that forces ISPs to keep data for 12 months.
It's the latest in a series of attempts from the Theresa May-led Home Office to legislate on communications data, known colloquially as the snooper's charter.
The latest bid to revive May's unloved plan comes after a recent decision from judges in the European Union's highest court ruled that the Data Retention Directive was "invalid".
We really are doing our American cousins proud.
Related Stories
from the tyrant dept.
UK Home Secretary Theresa May is favored to become the new leader of the Conservatives and the UK's next Prime Minister following a first round of voting, the elimination of Liam Fox, drop out of Stephen Crabb, and the earlier drop out of Boris Johnson:
Home Secretary Theresa May has comfortably won the first round of the contest to become the next Conservative leader and UK prime minister. Mrs May got 165 of the 329 votes cast by Tory MPs. Andrea Leadsom came second with 66 votes. Michael Gove got 48. [...] Further voting will narrow the field to two. The eventual outcome, decided by party members, is due on 9 September. Following the result, frontrunner Mrs May - who campaigned for the UK to stay in the EU - received the backing of Mr Fox, a former defence secretary and Brexit campaigner, and Mr Crabb, the work and pensions secretary, who backed Remain.
[...] Mrs May - who has said she will deliver Brexit if PM - said she was "pleased" with the result and "grateful" to colleagues for their support. She said there was a "big job" ahead to unite the party and the country following the referendum, to "negotiate the best possible deal as we leave the EU" and to "make Britain work for everyone". She added: "I am the only candidate capable of delivering these three things as prime minister, and tonight it is clear that I am also the only one capable of drawing support from the whole of the Conservative Party."
Update: The race to lead the Conservative Party and become the next Prime Minister of the UK is down to two women: Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom:
Some things in life are very predictable... the Earth continues to orbit around the Sun and Theresa May is trying to crack down on the Internet and ban/break encryption:
In the wake of Saturday's terrorist attack in London, the Prime Minister Theresa May has again called for new laws to regulate the internet, demanding that internet companies do more to stamp out spaces where terrorists can communicate freely. "We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed," she said. "Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide."
Her comments echo those made in March by the home secretary, Amber Rudd. Speaking after the previous terrorist attack in London, Rudd said that end-to-end encryption in apps like WhatsApp is "completely unacceptable" and that there should be "no hiding place for terrorists".
[...] "Theresa May's response is predictable but disappointing," says Paul Bernal at the University of East Anglia, UK. "If you stop 'safe places' for terrorists, you stop safe places for everyone, and we rely on those safe places for a great deal of our lives."
Last month New Scientist called for a greater understanding of technology among politicians. Until that happens, having a reasonable conversation about how best to tackle extremism online will remain out of reach.
End-to-end encryption is completely unacceptable? Now that's what I call an endorsement.
[more...]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 08 2014, @12:42AM
FTFY
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Tuesday July 08 2014, @12:16PM
Thanks
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 08 2014, @07:28PM
I took the original as a reference to a play in the 1860's called "Our American Cousin".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 08 2014, @01:24AM
I'd like to borrow a cup of that European Union's highest court please.
I'd also like to know why pushing it through before the election is so important when they are likely to get bitchslapped by the EU Court anyway?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday July 08 2014, @07:41AM
A lot of people are rather annoyed at the current government so they have a high chance of being voted out and not being able to try after the election. Essentially, here are their options:
-Make law, law not rejected by EU
-Make law, law rejected by EU
-Remain majority party, make law, law not rejected by EU
-Remain majority party, make law, law rejected by EU
-Lose majority party, can't make law
(Score: 1) by azrael on Tuesday July 08 2014, @10:02AM
The current UK law is an implementation of an EU directive. The EU directive (and thus derived national laws) have now been found to be invalid. In theory the UK can protect it's implementation of the invalid directive by quickly making up laws that protect and validate their existing implementation.
Sooner they do it, the better (they think).
If they wait until after election it could be some other Party making the law and then the current Parties in the coalition Government won't get the 'credit' for protecting us from terrorists, etc.
(Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Tuesday July 08 2014, @10:08AM
Which EU directive would that be?
(Score: 1) by azrael on Friday July 11 2014, @12:17PM
Data Retention Directive - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Friday July 11 2014, @01:39PM
Oh yeah. Duh, brain fart!
(Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Tuesday July 08 2014, @10:11AM
IIRC, this bill has turned up several times this decade and never even made it to the floor of the House of Commons for a vote; it's been shot down by pre-vote studies and investigations every time. The absolute worst-case scenario is that they actually manage to get enough MPs to vote it through to the House of Lords, where it will definitely be shot down and every single person who voted for it will be embarrassed as f*** and likely get voted out of their seats in the General Election next year.
Unfortunately, the party most likely to gain from that eventuality, and currently wiping the drool from both corners of their mouths in anticipation, is UKIP [ukip.org], a rather backward-looking aberration in UK politics who have been compared [catch21.co.uk] by many [foxnews.com] to the Tea Party [opendemocracy.net] but without the big corporate lobbyists pushing their own agenda in the background.
The recent results from both the local council elections [bbc.co.uk] in the UK and the EU parliament elections [bbc.co.uk] show that UKIP are in the ascendency, along with Labour, while the Conservatives slipped slightly and the Liberal Democrats got hammered. Having seen this data at the time, I fearfully predicted to my friends that next summer would see a Labour-UKIP coalition as the only house majority option that's politically acceptable to it's participants. Please let me be wrong! Anything but that!
PS: Potted History of UKIP - originally a single-issue party with charismatic leadership standing against EU membership and immigration "because we all know it's those filthy foreigners who are to blame for everything, what what!" They've gained traction with disgruntled, lower-income, righter-than-right-wing, ex-Conservative supporters aged 40+ who say stupid things in sentences that begin "I'm not racist, but...", have won some council and EU parliament seats and decided to try and look like serious contenders in UK general elections, so have hastily dragged together a parcel of policies that doesn't make much sense.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Tuesday July 08 2014, @12:10PM
If I were British I would be voting UKIP [ukip.org], thank you for giving them free advertising and please continue. I would like to hear your opinions on those non-whites who not only vote for them but represent them because that kind of spiel is always funny to listen to. Would you call them "Uncle Tom" or have you updated your "anti-racist" vocabulary to the contemporary "coconut" aka "white on the inside"? No don't switch on your brain; you're perfect just the way you are :)
As was recently quipped at Mock The Week [wikipedia.org] (not verbatim): 'everybody was told how bad and racist these people were and people in general listened and said "yeah that sounds like the party for me" and went to vote for them' :D
A good show, and nice to see some criticism of the BBC from a BBC show and even nicer to know it is in vain. By the way I'd vote for Dara Ó Briain [wikipedia.org] too, maybe that's the tactic they should go for (an Irish prime minister of the United Kingdom eh?) :)
If anyone close to Dara notices this then please pay attention to how I managed to write his Gaelic Ó correctly: it's the power of the Linux compose key! And my keyboard is some kind of combined multi-Scandinavian monstrosity with three different colors of letters and doesn't have any key with that character on it, however I suspect I will have to replace it with an appropriate HTML Unicode entry in the preview (I know it's already on the bug-list, I'm not complaining).
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Tuesday July 08 2014, @03:03PM
No problem, I may not support UKIP's positions on immigration and the EU, but I'll fight to the death their right to express them! I also reserve the right to troll the sh*t out of them at every opportunity and cave my own head in with a gold-plated copy of Das Kapital before the less open-minded of my liberal friends lynch me if UKIP ever achieve a governmental majority of membership of a ruling coalition. In the meantime, I'll be pounding my face into the desk until something fractures.
It isn't easy being Green.
(Score: 1) by Yog-Yogguth on Tuesday July 15 2014, @11:00AM
I think I got you wrong with my reply and I came on a bit harder than reasonable.
Because well if you're Green at least you don't vote for the Tories or Labour; I say voting for anything but them is for the better, anything! I doubt UKIP will ever work with Labour (which pushed hard for most of what UKIP is fighting against like genocidal immigration and union subservience, under a fundamentally antidemocratic union no less), I also doubt UKIP will ever work with the "Conservatives" (not even if they put Boris in charge: the Tories ultimately don't "get it" about being servants of the people). Both of those parties are rotten to the core (never mind their politics) and it would seem to be suicide for UKIP. Luckily for UKIP they have powerful "allies" in Cameron (I don't feel sorry for him) and Milliband (I do feel a bit sorry for him but shouldn't because he's just as bad) and a media environment which is finally starting to asphyxiate on its own over the top propaganda and the growing backlash it fuels.
Pounding ones face into the desk is one thing but accidentally yet repeatedly headbutting oneself when walking through the door like more people will find themselves doing is quite another and sometimes wakes up even the most ardently ideological person, once in a while it even happens "live" on telly :)
If (if!) UKIP ever does achieve majority please go easy on yourself and wait a few years, maybe you'll see what they're on about, some of those much more "worse off" than you might still approve of some of it unless Switzerland is their idea of hell :)
While it of course isn't entirely identical I live in a place where something similar has already happened (but an awful lot of work remains for them, they will need decades to repair it all) and the world didn't end, instead it slowly started getting a little bit better. It would be nice if it lasted but the distance to utter ruin is far shorter and would only take an election reverting to the same old sick bastards as were in power before.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Tuesday July 15 2014, @03:43PM
Harder than reasonable? I thought that was what all conversations about politics by people with differing views always ended up being and we were just skipping the pleasantries at the beginning. Still, most gracious of you sir!
When you're faced with two rotten popular parties, the third option is usually the best idea, but last time I tried that (in the absence of a Green candidate) I ended up voting Lib-Dem and the seat was won by the Conservatives... and we know what happened next. I couldn't possibly bring myself to vote for UKIP, so I'm now considering calling Montgomery Brewster [youtube.com] and asking him to stand in my constituency next year. That's if I'm still sober after the "emergency" data interception legislation that's being rushed through parliament in 1 day flat having been announced 1 week ago gets voted in. Which it will.
Does anyone here live in a sane country and need someone to share the rent?