Communications Capabilities Directorate aka Snooper Squad

It might seem unfair of me to criticise the media (with the notable exceptions of The Register and ZDNet) for not reporting about the government’s new snooper squad, the Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD), given I am only turning my attention to it four days later.  But the journalists are paid to investigate and report this kind of stuff as their day job, whereas I’m not.  But for many journalists such as enviropropagandist Louise Gray, unless ‘news’ is fed to them by way of press releases to cut, paste and publish, nothing is happening in the world that’s worth covering and they are content to sit around with their thumbs up their bums and their brains in neutral.

As The Register explains, the Communications Capabilities Directorate comprises the same civil servants who have been working on the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) since 2007, but now the group has a defined structure even though it has not been added to the Home Office’s list of directorates.  One for our honourable MPs to get their teeth into, methinks.  The sole aim of the CCD is online surveillance of us, namely the interception and retrieval of all our internet activity, giving the government and law enforcement access to the details of who contacts whom, when, where and how via the internet.

Despite substantial disquiet about this huge invasion of our privacy, the cost to internet service providers (ISP) of maintaining database archives of everything their customers do online; including sending and receiving emails, use of social networking sites, web browsing history, financial transactions and making voice calls through computers, the Home Office is pressing ahead with the scheme at a cost of at least £2bn to taxpayers, plus the costs that ISPs will pass on to customers.  Many people believed the plans were on hold until after the general election after the Home Office’s consultation saw ISPs strongly criticise the plans.  But the Home Office has been quietly pressing ahead with its scheme to turn all web users into criminal suspects and harvest our data.

It might have been nice if the media had, you know, taken notice and reminded people what is being done to us ‘for our own good’ by our noble public servants.  After all, with so much pressure on the government to reduce spending on non essential, non front line services, one would think cancelling this voyeuristic, £2bn socialist wet dream snooper squad dedicated to exerting control over the population would be far more beneficial for the general public than keeping it going.  It’s nice to know what Labour’s priorities are.