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Only an excuse?

A Lexicon | 10.07.2005 14:02 | Analysis | London

So the phone companies will be legally obliged to store communication data and the gprs location of individuals for the Civil Service to review. That's handy, given that GCHQ already do this quietly without drawing attention to themselves.

Sunday July 10, 01:42 PM

Government wants email and phone data kept for intelligence
LONDON (Reuters) - Three days after the London bombings, Britain said on Sunday it would seek new EU rules to make telecoms companies store records for much longer showing who their customers are calling and emailing.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he would raise the issue on Wednesday at a meeting of European Union interior ministers which he has called in Brussels to discuss a joint response to the bombings by suspected Islamist militants.

"We believe that telecommunications records, whether of telephones or emails, which record what calls were made from what number to another number at what time, are of very important use for intelligence," Clarke told the BBC.

"I'm not talking now about the content of any call, but the fact that a call was made. And we believe it's important to get a retention of data, of what calls were made, for some considerable time."

Phone records are likely to play an important role in the probe into Thursday's attacks by suspected al Qaeda-linked bombers who killed more than 50 people aboard three London underground trains and a bus.

TIME AND LOCATION

Mobile phone data show not only what numbers are connected to each other via calls, voicemail and text messages, but also the time and the physical location of the parties within the cell network when a given conversation took place.

A Lexicon

Comments

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hmm

10.07.2005 23:10

They have already been doing this though. Peoples emails have been brought up in court already.

hmmm


Sane Solution

11.07.2005 20:32

I have a radical solution. Instead of complaining, threatening direct action, or clogging up Indymedia lets all chuck in a couple of hundred quid each, get some really good QCs, and fight it in the courts. If the number of folk on this web-site are anything to go by, we'd have anough cash for a top notch team!

Or is it all talk? Go on, put your money where your mouths are...

Action NOW!