OT: U.K. to spend 12 bln pounds to spy on calls and e-mails

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http://en.rian.ru/world/20081005/117440293.html

U.K. to spend 12 bln pounds to spy on calls and e-mails - paper
05/ 10/ 2008

LONDON, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - The U.K. authorities are considering
spending up to 12 billion pounds ($21 billion) on a database to keep
information on Internet intercepts, e-mail and telephone records of everyone
in Britain, The Sunday Times reported.

U.K. officials say live monitoring is necessary to fight terrorism and crime.
However, critics have doubts about whether such a vast system can be kept
secure, the paper said.

The British security service MI5 currently conducts limited e-mail and website
intercepts only under warrants from the home secretary, the paper said.

According to The Sunday Times, the government's eavesdropping center, GCHQ,
has already been allocated 1 billion British pounds ($21 billion) to finance
the first stage of the project.

Hundreds of secret probes are believed to be installed on two of the country's
biggest Internet and mobile phone providers - BT and Vodafone - to monitor
customers live, the paper said.

According to The Sunday Times, no formal decision had yet been taken but
sources said that officials had agreed in principle to the program.

"Any suggestion of the government using existing powers to intercept
communications data without public discussion is going to sound extremely
sinister," the paper quoted Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, as
saying.

2007 RIA Novosti