Big brother - 27 April 2009 |
|
Yesterday we were greeted with the news that a ‘drugs liaison officer lost a computer memory stick said to contain a list of undercover agents’ names and details of more than five years of intelligence work.’ Apparently ‘the MI6-trained agent left her handbag [containing the memory stick] on a transit coach at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia.’ Consequently, ‘Intelligence chiefs were forced to wind up operations and relocate dozens of agents and informants amid fears the device could fall into the hands of drugs barons.’
Then, this morning, we were woken with an update on the proposed ‘Big Brother database’. The plan was announced last year, and is still being pushed forward. The government proposes to hold ‘details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public’ as part of the fight against terrorism. The content of these communications are not to be recorded, we are told; just their length, number and so on.
Here’s my prediction:
The plan probably won’t go ahead at all – at least, not for a while. Let’s face it, the Home Office, which would apparently have final responsibility for the scheme, has suffered a few dents to its credibility in recent weeks. The Home Secretary has a few other things to be concerned about right now.
But if it does get the green light, here’s how it’ll pan out:
1. The plan will cost far more then the original estimates. (Just to remind you, the cost of GCHQ’s proposal to move its computer systems from one building to another escalated from an original estimate of £20M to a final cost of around £300M.)
2. The promise not to record the content of the communications will be broken within a decade – if not by this government then by one of its successors.
3. Within the same period of time there will be a serious breach of security, resulting in a vast stash of data being left in a brown envelope in a London Gentlemen’s Club. Or something.
A bit like this.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Current affairs, Minister's Blog