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UK’s Home Office spawns a new unit to expand internet surveillance, according to a report from The Register.

The “Communications Capabilities Directorate” (CCD) with a budget of £2bn will continue intelligence and law enforcement agencies’ call for new laws to force communication providers to store details of who contacts whom, when, where, and how via the internet.

“More recently, we have been considering how, in a changing communications environment, lawful acquisition of communications data and interception of communications can continue to save lives, to counter terrorism, to detect crime and prosecute offenders, and to protect the public,” a Home Office spokesman said.

Officials envisage that communications providers will maintain giant databases of everything their customers do online, including email, social networking, web browsing and making VoIP calls. They want providers to process the mass of data to link it to individuals, to make it easier for authorities to access. —<>—

Graybyrd sez: “Once this becomes well established & accepted in the UK and across Europe, then the U.S. agencies will be completely unstoppable in implementing similar laws. The U.K. has more monitoring cameras doing street corner surveillance of its citizens than any other country. I guess this is what it means to be on the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology.

One comment noted that Internet surveillance could be avoided if one were to send hand-written letters in envelopes, sealed with first-class stamps on so they get there in a week or so, except now one might be required to register all letters sent with an address from and an address to, and transcribe the contents in a standard way with a non-smiling photograph, and pass the letters through Your Local Police Station where they may be checked for special keywords and stamped with an official stamp.

“But I’m doing nothing wrong so I have nothing to fear…”

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To Spy On Them All © Graybyrd 2015