UK to spy on all online communications

Press TV – February 19, 2012

The British government is to exert more control over the public by storing the details of British people’s communications including every phone call, text message and email.

The British government will order phone companies and broadband providers to record the details of all phone calls, text messages, and emails and restore the data for one year, reported the Telegraph on Saturday.

Britain’s new spy plans will also target social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter as the details of direct messages communicated between the users are to be recorded.

The change in the social media has been a concern for the British government at times of crisis such as the unprecedented unrest which swept across the country in August last year.

Exerting more control over British public’s communication via social media is a preventative measure taken by the British government to spy on people and limit their access to the means of communication.

The Telegraph revealed that Britain’s Home Office has been engaged in negotiations with internet providers for two months.

The spy plans have been drawn up by the country’s intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 in collaboration with the GCHQ, Britain’s secretive agency of intelligence experts.

Big Brother Watch, a campaign group defending individual privacy and civil liberties, described the British government’s decision as “shameful” saying, “Britain is already one of the most spied on countries off-line,” online spying on the British public would be another invasion on their privacy.

US federal agencies seek software to monitor social media

Press TV – February 13, 2012

US government agencies are looking for digital tools that can extract information from social media to predict everything from future terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings.

According to requests posted online, US federal law enforcement agencies are looking for potential contractors to build software that can monitor the entire universe of social media.

The Department of Defense, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Federal Bureau of Investigation are among US agencies that are looking for ways to automate the process of identifying emerging threats and upheavals from social websites.

“Social media has emerged to be the first instance of communication about a crisis, trumping traditional first responders that included police, firefighters, EMT, and journalists,” the FBI wrote in its request.

“Social media is rivaling 911 services in crisis response and reporting,” the request added.

The proposals have raised privacy concerns among advocates who worry that such monitoring efforts could breach user’s privacy.

The FBI says their proposed system is only meant to monitor publicly available information and words that relate to criminal activities.

The software sought by the Defense Department would track information posted by the social media to identify threats that could affect US soldiers in the battlefield.