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UK gov issued 250k phone tap licences in nine months

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UK gov issued 250k phone tap licences in nine months

The regulator for Britain's snoopers has released a report covering the last nine months of 2006, painting a panglossian picture of a period which saw a quarter of a million intercepts.

From 11 April to 31 December 2006 there were 253,557 requests for communication data. In the same period there were only 1,088 errors - mostly due to incorrectly-written phone numbers.

The Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy said he saw no reason to change the current law, and indeed had only met one person while doing his job who has a different opinion. There has been some debate as to if intercepted information should be permitted as court evidence.

Kennedy makes visits to the Security Services, Secret Intelligence Service, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Met, HMRC, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office and Scottish Office among other agencies. He gets a complete list of all requests made by the relevant agency, then picks a random selection of warrants to check they have been properly filed.

He has also informally visited 11 communication and internet service providers. He said ISPs welcome these visits, and that "those... who work in this field have great enthusiasm in their work. They recognise the importance of it in the public interest, and the necessity of doing all their work accurately and efficiently."

Local authorities vary widely in their use of communications data. Some 474 local authorities can get phone tap and other comms data, but in the period only 122 used that power. Those 122 authorities made 1,694 requests to identify rogue traders, fly tippers and housing benefit cheats.

Kennedy said he was impressed by the "striking successes" helped by interception. Kennedy said: "It has played a key role in numerous operations including, for example, the prevention of murders, tackling large-scale drug importations, evasion of Excise duty, people smuggling, gathering intelligence both within the United Kingdom and overseas on terrorist and various extremist organisations, confiscation of firearms, serious violent crime and terrorism."

The Register

Is it me or are those numbers pretty scary?

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49 comments

#33

Joie de Vivre Wed, 30 Jan 2008 - 22:37

Irfan.KhanThe reason why i am a fundamentalist is because the fundamentals of islam are good and they dont preach terrorism and extremism, however im an extremist ask me further if you want?

Sure, but that's a semantic redefining of the term. My answer is the same. Are you complaining about the use of the terms fundamentalist and extremist to describe those who believe it is every Muslim's obligation to join a jihad?

#39

MuslimBro Wed, 30 Jan 2008 - 22:52

Joie de VivreI think only a lot of people who are just on the fringes of the jihad thing - supporting HT or whatever but not a specific threat - particularly buy that there's anything wrong with the work of police and security in general. That's not a comment on you, but I do think that's where the disrespect comes from.

Care to elaborate?

#40

Joie de Vivre Wed, 30 Jan 2008 - 23:05

MuslimBro

Joie de VivreI think only a lot of people who are just on the fringes of the jihad thing - supporting HT or whatever but not a specific threat - particularly buy that there's anything wrong with the work of police and security in general. That's not a comment on you, but I do think that's where the disrespect comes from.

Care to elaborate?

lol Not particularly, but like I said that wasn't accusing you. Since you've been looking at HT it seems that's where the automatic disrespect for intel might come from.

#46

MuslimBro Wed, 30 Jan 2008 - 23:51

Joie de Vivrelol Not particularly, but like I said that wasn't accusing you. Since you've been looking at HT it seems that's where the automatic disrespect for intel might come from.

Actually this has nothing to do with HT. I should have mentioned this before but I don't really care if I'm spied on. Some people still seem to think I've been brainwashed :?

Infact the police force is a career I'm looking to go into if you didn't know.

#47

Joie de Vivre Thu, 31 Jan 2008 - 00:01

MuslimBro

Joie de Vivrelol Not particularly, but like I said that wasn't accusing you. Since you've been looking at HT it seems that's where the automatic disrespect for intel might come from.

Actually this has nothing to do with HT. I should have mentioned this before but I don't really care if I'm spied on. Some people still seem to think I've been brainwashed :?

Infact the police force is a career I'm looking to go into if you didn't know.

I did know that, come to think of it. You called intel types trawling the web sados and I disagreed, that was all. Fair play to you.

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