UK governmnt to launch new monitoring of internet activity

Russia's secret service agency raised privacy watchdogs' hackles when it admitted it could intercept and monitor all Russian Internet traffic.

On Sunday the British government acknowledged that it was building a system that could do the same thing in Great Britain, ostensibly to help catch money launderers, terrorists, pedophiles, and other criminals who do business online.

It also could help usher in an era of Orwellian surveillance, privacy advocates fear.

"They've taken a lead from the KGB," said Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters, an online privacy advocacy group.

The British system, called the Government Technical Assistance Centre, will have its hub in the headquarters of the MI5, the British secret service agency. All of Britain's Internet Service Providers will be connected to the GTAC through dedicated lines (which they will have to pay for themselves).

After its scheduled completion by the end of the year, the system will allow British police and secret service agents to intercept every bit of the country's Internet traffic. That could include email, credit card transactions, banking data -- any information exchanged between computers on the Web.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2000/05/36031
Try googling "Government Technical Assistance Centre"... little mention, but the secret monitoring centre has been built in the UK...

Did I mention that article was from 2000?

Thoughts?

If this is such old news, why bring it back? I know we are being watched every day of our lives anyhow, and that our goverments lie to us.. The only thing we can do is fight back with cunning and sly wits. And elect another goverment that will also lie to us.