British spy agency seeks snooping powers, as London's mayor is "not bothered" with civil liberties

[Reefa]

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said Britain's intelligence services should be allowed to monitor internet and phone data of anyone who poses a threat to Britain.

Johnson, a key ally of the Conservative prime minister -- once believed to be a potential contender for the prime minister's seat, said British authorities must be "absolutely determined to monitor" those who may pose a threat to Britain.

"If they are a threat to our society then I want them properly listened to," Johnson said in response to the Paris attacks, which left more than a dozen people dead after three days of coordinated and planned terrorists attacks last week.

He also said those who are unwilling to accept British values should "go away."

The Paris terrorist attacks in early January brought fresh calls for police and intelligence services in the U.K. to be given stronger powers to monitor Internet, phone, and email use.

The chief of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, colloquially known as MI5, warned of the technology-related change that is "affecting our ability to deal" with ongoing threats to the U.K. and wider Europe.

Director-General Andrew Parker, whose tenure as the spy agency's chief began just over a year ago, said in a speech at the agency's headquarters that the interception of communications -- which includes the listening of phone calls and reading contents of emails -- forms a "critical part" in the intelligence agencies' toolkit.

Parker warned that the "further reduction" of the agency's interception capabilities would "seriously harm our ability to investigate and disrupt such threats in the future."

It comes as the Conservative-led coalition appealed for the reinstatement of powers struck down weeks before by the European Court of Justice.

The decision to repeal the data retention laws across the EU's 28 member states, which allowed the British government to search and access the Internet and phone call records of every British resident for up to two years, was met with controversy across the British government.

Emergency legislation went into effect weeks later, allowing MI5 and its other sister intelligence agencies to access data held by private companies, including Internet and phone providers.

European agencies are equally seeking greater powers to prevent similar attacks from happening within the region.

A statement released by interior ministers representing just shy of half of the region's member states said they were "concerned at the increasingly frequent use of the Internet to fuel hatred and violence," and that they aimed to work with Internet providers to report and remove material associated with "extremism."

The European Parliament is said to take up the issue later this year.

Source

[Dodel]

They should, but not under this governing rule, they are too busy filling their own pockets, and shafting the working public to the hilt, and selling off ALL our assests, that THEY cannot be trusted to bet let out, never mind having that kid of power!.

[dbaker]

What a load of b****cks None of this crap will make any of us any safer!! Britain is already one of the most,if not the most surveilled country in the world, There are between 4 million and 5.9 million CCTV surveillance cameras in the UK, according to a 2014 report from the British Security Industry Association (BSIA). In 2007 the UK had 1% of world's population but 20% of its CCTV cameras,at that time it ment there were for 14 people for every camera, last year that was down to 11 people per camera! If you live or are visiting the UK today your image may well have been captured on more than 300 surveillance cameras,mostly without you knowing it.

If the government has access to every email you’ve ever written and every phone call you’ve ever made, it’s almost certain that they would find something you’ve done which breaks some ancient law or some new Anti-terror law.Police already abuse the power they have, but if everyone’s every action were being monitored, and everyone technically violates some obscure law at some time, then punishment becomes purely selective. Those in power will essentially have what they need to punish anyone they’d like.
To all the people in the UK calling for more laws and more monitoring of people, PLEASE think on this...once this sort of surveillance is in place to enforce rules that you agree with, the rules that are being enforced could change in ways that you don’t agree with! – Any surveillance must be regarded in terms of how it can be abused by a worse power than today’s.

A great quote to think of during times such as these reads.....

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984