Sun
The British government is considering a $24-billion plan to monitor the e-mail, telephone and Internet browsing records of every person in the country. It would involve the creation of a mammoth database to store hundreds of billions of pieces of communications traffic and its supporters say it would become one of the security services’ most comprehensive tools in the fight against terrorism. Britain‘s internal security service MI5 has to apply for warrants to intercept specific e-mail and website traffic, but under the new plan, networks could be monitored live by the government listening post. Security officials claimed that live monitoring was necessary to pick up terrorist plots.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
