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Orwell was right about UK



http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/04/30/stinwenws01034.html

 MI5 builds new centre to read e-mails on the net 

                       Nicholas Rufford 


 MI5 is building a new 25m e-mail surveillance centre that will have the
 power to monitor all e-mails and internet messages sent and received in
 Britain. The government is to require internet service providers, such as
 Freeserve and AOL, to have "hardwire" links to the new computer facility
 so
 that messages can be traced across the internet. 

 The security service and the police will still need Home Office
 permission to
 search for e-mails and internet traffic, but they can apply for general
 warrants
 that would enable them to intercept communications for a company or an
 organisation. 

 The new computer centre, codenamed GTAC - government technical
 assistance centre - which will be up and running by the end of the year
 inside
 MI5's London headquarters, has provoked concern among civil liberties
 groups. "With this facility, the government can track every website that
 a
 person visits, without a warrant, giving rise to a culture of suspicion
 by
 association," said Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for
 Information
 Policy Research. 

 The government already has powers to tap phone lines linking computers,
 but
 the growth of the internet has made it impossible to read all
 material. By
 requiring service providers to install cables that will download material
 to
 MI5, the government will have the technical capability to read everything
 that
 passes over the internet. 

 Home Office officials say the centre is needed to tackle the use of the
 internet
 and mobile phone networks by terrorists and international crime
 gangs.Charles Clark, the minister in charge of the spy centre project,
 said it
 would allow police to keep pace with technology. 

 "Hardly anyone was using the internet or mobile phones 15 years ago," a
 Home Office source said. "Now criminals can communicate with each other
 by a huge array of devices and channels and can encrypt their messages,
 putting them beyond the reach of conventional eavesdropping." 

 There has been an explosion in the use of the internet for crime in
 Britain and
 across the world, leading to fears in western intelligence agencies that
 they
 will soon be left behind as criminals abandon the telephone and resort to
 encrypted e-mails to run drug rings and illegal prostitution and
 immigration
 rackets. 

 The new spy centre will decode messages that have been encrypted. Under
 new powers due to come into force this summer, police will be able to
 require
 individuals and companies to hand over computer "keys", special codes
 that
 unlock scrambled messages. 

 There is controversy over how the costs of intercepting internet traffic
 should
 be shared between government and industry. Experts estimate that the cost
 to
 Britain's 400 service providers will be 30m in the first year. Internet
 companies say that this is too expensive, especially as many are making
 losses. 

 About 15m people in Britain have internet access. Legal experts have
 warned
 that many are unguarded in the messages they send or the material they
 download, believing that they are safe from prying eyes. 

 "The arrival of this spy centre means that Big Brother is finally
 here," said
 Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes. "The balance between the
 state and individual privacy has swung too far in favour of the state.