{"id":7761,"date":"2014-07-12T14:24:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T13:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=7761"},"modified":"2014-07-16T10:40:14","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T09:40:14","slug":"theresa-may-hopes-to-resurrect-snoopers-charter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/theresa-may-hopes-to-resurrect-snoopers-charter\/","title":{"rendered":"Theresa May Resurrects “Snooper’s Charter”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Theresa<\/a>
Theresa May: in favour of increased internet surveillance in Britain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Theresa May has\u00a0resurrected\u00a0<\/strong>plans for a \u201csnooper\u2019s charter<\/a><\/strong>\u201d in order to counteract, she says, terrorist threats from British jihadists in Syria.<\/p>\n

She stated again<\/strong> <\/a>that she wants to \u201cequip the state with greater surveillance powers\u2014including the ability to access citizens\u2019 email and social media accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n

May claims that it is vital for security authorities to have enough power to counteract terrorist in a world with ever-increasing internet capabilities. She claims that having this power is a matter of \u201clife and death, a matter of national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

She related how many Britons have travelled to Syria to fight the Assad regime, and how this could represent a threat when they return to the UK.<\/p>\n

It was of course British Foreign Secretary William Hague<\/a><\/strong> who encouraged the uprising against President Assad and paved the way for Islamist terrorists to become entrenched in\u00a0Syria in the first place. \u00a0The UK gave the anti-Christian rebels \u00a332.5m<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0Only as a result of prayer and by the grace of God did the UK not\u00a0send warplanes<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0against\u00a0Syrian government forces and make matters even worse.<\/p>\n

May also\u00a0claimed that at least 20 cases, 13 of which involved a threat to a child\u2019s life, were dropped by the National Crime Agency in the past six months for lack of communication data.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Lord Mayor\u2019s Defence and Security Lecture, May said that “the real problem is not that we have built an over-mighty state but that the state is finding it harder to fulfil its most basic duty, which is to protect the public.”<\/p>\n

She believes that internet technology has given criminals more ways to commit crimes, and that the Government needs to be able to match these criminals in technological advances, which includes accessing information that can help stop them. She even referred to the internet as a \u201cbreeding ground for criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emma Carr, acting director of privacy campaigner group Big Brother Watch, asserted<\/strong> <\/a>that May differs from the majority opinion on this issue.<\/p>\n

“Yet again the Home Secretary is clashing with the broad political consensus that no new powers should be introduced until a full independent review into the currently available surveillance legislation and oversight mechanisms has taken place,” she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“We know from surveillance transparency reports published by private companies that they largely comply with law enforcement requests for communications data.<\/p>\n

“Therefore, if the Home Secretary is stating that communications data was unavailable in specific cases, then that would suggest that a warrant was either not submitted to, or was rejected by, the companies in question. The question therefore should be why is this the case?” Carr added.<\/p>\n

May introduced<\/strong> <\/a>the \u201csnooper\u2019s charter\u201d proposal last year to increase surveillance of people\u2019s internet and phone communications, but it was blocked by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister. He believed her plans would be opening up doors for all sorts of mass surveillance by the government.<\/p>\n

If passed, the proposed legislation would require internet firms to keep records of all email and social media interactions for up to a year, in case these records need to be accessed in an issue of national security.<\/p>\n

Based on recent reports<\/strong><\/a>, May appears\u00a0to want this legislation passed before the next general election.<\/p>\n

May also denied<\/strong> <\/a>a \u201csurveillance state\u201d programme as alleged by Edward Snowden, and she affirmed that Britain did not rely on the US to illegally obtain internet records.<\/p>\n

“There is no programme of mass surveillance and there is no surveillance state,” May asserted.<\/p>\n

However, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has already been accused by privacy campaigners of spying on citizens by hacking unlawfully into personal information.<\/p>\n

Privacy International alleges<\/strong> <\/a>that GCHQ was illegally spying on people and has broken the European Convention of Human Rights by doing so. This document ensures citizens a right to privacy and freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

Privacy International claims that, based on information from whistleblower Edward Snowden, that the GCHQ and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) used a monitoring programmed called Tempora, which \u201ctaps into the network of fibre-optic cables which carry the world\u2019s phone calls and online traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deputy director of Privacy International, Eric King, said this was the \u201cmodern equivalent of the government entering someone\u2019s house and reading their diary, correspondence and journals.\u201d<\/p>\n

May denied these allegations as well, calling them \u201cnonsense\u201d and affirming that everything the Government is doing in surveillance is perfectly legal.<\/p>\n

The Government received more criticism when Charles Farr, Britain\u2019s most senior security official, said in a statement<\/strong><\/a> in mid-June that the Government is allowed to access citizens\u2019 personal messages on social media sites because they are regarded as \u201cexternal communications.\u201d These include searches on Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, in addition to emails from non-British citizens.<\/p>\n

This is the first time that the Government openly stated that they intercept, without a warrant, what citizens believed were private messages.<\/p>\n

Farr said that today the biggest threat to national security in the UK and beyond is from \u201cmilitant Islamist terrorists,\u201d and it is therefore necessary to find these suspects before it becomes too difficult to trace them. If the government was only allowed to monitor individual people or locations, this would not provide an adequate degree of protection which the people expect.<\/p>\n

In addition, ministers have proposed this week to enact emergency laws that would require phone companies to keep records of people\u2019s phone calls, texts, and internet history. Labour and Liberal Democrats are supporting this move but also\u00a0warned<\/strong> <\/a>that they will not allow this new law to reinstate a more extensive \u201csnooper\u2019s charter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many allegations have been recently made against the Government regarding surveillance, followed by profuse denial from Theresa May. Are online terrorists really a threat to our national safety and is this the only way we can counteract terrorist threats? It is hard to say. But one thing remains certain: as much of a danger as terrorism may be, an even greater danger arises when a populace is willing to surrender substantial liberties for the promise of security. As we pointed out<\/strong><\/a> earlier this year, the normalization of the modern surveillance state arises from the universal human temptation to surrender freedom for the often illusory promise of increased security. That is why, when Government officials begin talking about \u201cmatters of life and death,\u201d one must be cautious about the motivation behind it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theresa May has\u00a0resurrected\u00a0plans for a \u201csnooper\u2019s charter\u201d in order to counteract, she says, terrorist threats from British jihadists in Syria. She stated again that she wants to \u201cequip the state with greater surveillance powers\u2014including the ability to access citizens\u2019 email and social media accounts.\u201d May claims that it is vital for security authorities to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144,83,82],"tags":[1300,1299,555],"class_list":["post-7761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-of-speech","category-justice-policing-crime","category-politics","tag-snoopers-charter","tag-surveillance","tag-theresa-may"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t