If the police want to watch you, all they'll need is the say-so of one lower-ranking politician.

Letter From London: Big Browser

Parliament's Poised To Allow Monitoring Of Personal Computer Use Analysis And Commentary By CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier

LONDON, July 20, 2000 AP (CBS) And a letter...is perhaps all you should send to Britain from now on, if you want any privacy. In the next few days, the British government is poised to pass what's best known as the Big Browser law. It will allow the government to read any e-mail sent to or from an Internet site in Britain  supposedly to catch terrorists and thieves using the net.

It will also allow them to monitor everything you do on your computer: How many times a day you log on, what sites you visit, how much is in your e-banking account. If the police want to watch you, all they'll need is the say-so of one lower-ranking politician.

And don't think they won't use it. Police wire-tapped some 18,000 phone lines in Britain this year alone.

The only other countries already using similar technology are Singapore, Malaysia, and Russia  none exactly known as paragons of free speech.

And here's the kicker: Internet service providers will be required by this law to install black boxes to connect their e-traffic with British security services MI5 and MI6. Experts estimate that's going to cost up to a billion dollars a year, eventually forcing Internet providers to raise their rates, and forcing Internet users...to pay for Big Brother Britain.

http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,217168-412,00.shtml

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 22, 2000

Answers

It is incumbent on each individual to encrypt
their emails with a secure encryption device
such as PGP.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), July 22, 2000.

Boy, this is Big Brother at its scariest.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), July 23, 2000.

I wonder when something like this will hit the U.S. Methinks it is only a matter of time--especially if Albert Gore, Jr. is elected president.

-- JackW (jpayne@webtv.net), July 23, 2000.

Whatever happened to invasion of privacy, supposedly guaranteed us by the U.S. constitution?

I think this concept is fast going to hell in a hand basket.

-- Wellesley (wellesley@freeport.net), July 23, 2000.

Ah, yes, the handwriting is on the wall. Big Brother is bearing down on us.

-- Chance (fruitloops@Hotmail.com), July 23, 2000.

What I can't understand is why can't they allocate some stipend for selective use, for security purposes?

A blanket approach, infringing on everyone's privacy rights, all at the same time, makes no sense at all.

Certainly, there is someone out there who can figure a way to accomplish both - enhance security, while protecting us from Big Brother - at the same time.

-- Wayward (wayward@webtv.net), July 23, 2000.