Comment by UVB-76 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by UVB-76 | Hacker News Reader

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How anyone can celebrate these concessions is beyond me.

The law will still require ISPs to log every website visited by every UK internet user for a year, and allow police and intelligence officers to interrogate this data without a warrant.

Meanwhile the security and intelligence agencies will be allowed to continue their bulk intercepts and collection of bulk communications data (i.e. collecting everything, whether you're an MP, a doctor, a lawyer, a trade unionist, etc.)

Of course there's nothing wrong with this because the intelligence agencies are trustworthy institutions who wouldn't do anything unlawful... [1] [2]

[1] https://www.privacyinternational.org/node/482 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/06/gchq-mass-in...

I'm as concerned about these issues as anyone here, but does the bill that was given its third reading yesterday actually still do all of those things?

The text runs to hundreds of pages and has had thousands of amendments considered and many of them applied since the early days. A lot of MPs spoke in favour of it and then voted for it yesterday despite expressing significant reservations in the past.

On the other hand, there certainly are still provisions for various kinds of bulk surveillance and there is still a mention of internet connection records. Some MPs did indicate that they would be voting against it because of concerns they still have about these kinds of areas.

There seems to have been remarkably little coverage of this in the UK media so far (it's almost wall-to-wall EU referendum flamebait at the moment) and I've yet to see any robust legal analysis of how much things have shifted in the more controversial areas and how much the various checks and balances that have been incorporated are actually worth.

If it really is true that sledgehammers like bulk surveillance would still be used routinely under the current provisions in the bill then it's very disappointing that it has got through, but I'd like to see some detailed analysis from experts who've been following the development and understand the implications of the legal wording.

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