The Coalitions plans to monitor e-communication

Rumor has it that the Coalition wishes to enhance their abilities on monitoring modern technology. The main force behind this is the Conservatives where Theresa May proposes that the police need to have greater power in monitoring emails and need more control on social media sites. The government believes that the Draft Bill would update existing procedures for allowing access to “vital” information. They even proposed that the M15 and M16 are missing out on key information that can prevent terrorism and that internet surveillance will assist greatly. May argued that if this goes through crime can be prevented and the most terrible of criminals stopped. She insisted that pedophiles, terrorists and criminal groups would be caught and that this bill can really help society. Information from the Internet, Social network sites, and webmail and internet phone calls should be stored for 12 months in order for police to access. Theresa May went out her way to even claim that this Bill will ‘save lives’ and prevent major crimes being committed.Some believe that social media sites are out of control and to an extent encourage criminal behavior. As seen in August when the riots sprung, Twitter was being used to plot places to loot against. If police have more power they can be more assertive against riots and be more prepared. As witnessed in Tottenham and elsewhere in England, the police showed a lack of organization and knowledge and perhaps this new bill may gave the Police an advantage in decreasing criminal behavior and maybe the events saw in 2011 may have been prevented.A Draft of this Bill has been published named The Communications Data Bill: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm83/8359/8359.pdfThe Bill proposes that data telecoms firms will have to store data for up to 12 months. The data will include first time messages sent via network sites, e-mails and voice calls. The data also includes the time and duration of the communication and also vitally the location of where the information was created. The bill however does state that police need a warrant to access the content of messages.According to May, 30,000 of the cases dealt last year where police had to request urgent communication data, 40% resulted in people’s lives being saved. We must ask ourselves whether this Bill can really help and perhaps lives can be saved. But this bill has been under fire and many oppose this upcoming bill. In particular the Lib Dems has shown their stance, Julian Heppert claimed that this Bill will infringe on private lives and this raises concerns.Nick Pickles, director of the privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: "We're seeing moves at an international level to make it easier for the content of communications to be intercepted. For Home Office officials behind the communications data bill, spying on who we are emailing or Skyping is not their final objective. Officials from Britain are working internationally to force service providers to ensure that their systems are easy to tap into."Further reading:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18434112http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20157059http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9735480/Spies-need-snooping-powers-to-protect-public-from-terrorists-committee-warns.htmlAlex Nitta