New Labour - The party of snoopers & sneaks.

Government wants powers to open your private email account

Controversial Government powers to access millions of people's private phone records are set to be extended to email accounts and website records, ministers have said.

The news means that councils or quangoes could access private email accounts or examine internet phone records to snoop on taxpayers.

It has emerged that Sir Paul Kennedy, the spying watchdog, said they were not using their powers to examine phone bills and call records enough.

Since last October phone companies have had to retain information about all landline and mobile phone calls made by members of the public for one year, and hand over the data to more than 650 public bodies and quangos.

The move, approved by Parliament last July under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, was justified as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism.

The Home Office said it wanted to extend the powers to include people's access to websites, email accounts and even phone calls made over the internet using services like Skype.

A Home Office consultation document on implementing an EU directive on electronic communications said the data would only be made available "to assist in the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime".

The cost of the new plan is likely to be borne by internet and telecommunications companies, although the Home Office said this would form part of the consultation.

**Oh come on borne by the internet and telecommunications companies my arse, they will pass the costs onto the customer. So it will be borne by the customer. The Home Office like the rest of the government seem not to have a clue as to how business works.

The move has been heavily criticised, with claims that extending the powers was further evidence of a "snoopers' charter".

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "Ministers have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted with sensitive data, but they seem intent on pressing ahead with this snoopers' charter.

"We will be told it is for use in combating terrorism and organised crime but if RIPA powers are anything to go by, it will soon be used to spy on ordinary people's kids, pets and bins.

"Once again, the Government seems prepared to be more invasive than its EU counterparts in seeking to hold phone records for two years rather than six months."

Guy Herbert, a spokesman for the No2ID campaign, said the information would be made available to "hundreds of official bodies responsible" under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

He said: "As ever with the database state this is a mass-surveillance measure for the retrospective convenience of officialdom in general.

"Bugging and tracking genuine suspects in real ongoing investigations is unaffected. This is keeping everything it might be convenient to know about you and me for a rainy day."

The Home Office said that enforcement officers would only have access to where emails were sent or received from and not their content.

And we are supposed to believe that claim? I am sure that viewing and listening to calls will be going on, its called mission creep.

A spokesman said: "This data is a vital tool to investigations and intelligence gathering in support of national security and crime. Communications data allows investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time.

**Just the sort of thing that you need to see if Mr Jones has been bragging about putting the wrong sort of waste in his bin in an e-mail, or if Mrs Jones has a pet that she should not have in her sheltered accomation. This is going to be used by every perv that works in local government to snoop on our lives, whilst the rest of us should we attempt to do the same could be charged with voyerism.

"It also gives investigators the potential to identify other forensic opportunities, identify witnesses and premises of evidential interest. Many alibis are proven or refuted through the use of communications data. Without the directive investigative opportunities will increasingly be lost.

**Wow, you mean they might catch Mr Smith working whilst signing on or that someone, anyone is doing something that the council can tut at, fine, disaprove of and otherwise find ever more ways of watching/taxing an running our lives as they see fit.

"Implementing the EC Directive will enable UK law enforcement to benefit fully from historical communications data in increasingly complex investigations and will enhance our national security."

Enhance our national security. Bollocks.

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