Don’t worry, the title hasn’t happened. Well, it hasn’t yet anyway. The Times:

A massive government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials…

Hmm, anyone considered this?: imagine if every handwritten letter, card, and mail order purchase had to have a copy made and was kept on file by the Home Office for 12 months, “as part of the fight against crime and terrorism”? Would that be acceptable? Of course not.

But now I’m more worried, in case I just gave someone in this inept Government another “brilliant” idea. However, bear in mind just because the Home Office suggests, that doesn’t mean that suggestion becomes law. (Every government department has its own pet desires, we know: the Home Office would probably ultimately like to see every person in the UK microchipped. “Senior police officials” already want a universal DNA database. Just think about how those would help the “fight against crime and terrorism,” too?) And it seems even this Government may sense this is just one department power-grab too far:

…Jonathan Bamford, the assistant Information Commissioner, said: “This would give us serious concerns and may well be a step too far. We are not aware of any justification for the State to hold every UK citizen’s phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable. We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Holding large collections of data is always risky - the more data that is collected and stored, the bigger the problem when the data is lost, traded or stolen.”…

ISPs already have to keep every text and email for 12 months. What makes this different is now the Home Office wants to hold the information itself in one place — theirs. (Was that future location change possibility raised at all at the time the law was being formulated to demand the ISPs hold the info for that period?) The stated reason: to be able to get at it quicker (all together now) as part of the fight against crime and terrorism.

Sorry, sorry, that’s not an exact quote. What we are told by a Home Office spokesperson is:

…the Bill was needed to reflect changes in communication that would “increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data and use it to protect the public”.

In the end, there is probably nothing to worry about, though. This Government couldn’t even cleanly oversee the implementation of a new computer system for the NHS. And if it somehow managed to limp into creating (before it gets voted out of office) this unbelievably larger and far more complicated database (and how would they pay for it also, exactly?) . . . you just know they’d probably lose it or hide it so craftily that they couldn’t access it anyway.

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Or we may just have to go back to letter writing — which would appropriately continue the technological trends that have emerged of late. As we well-know already, flying is now a planet destroying no-no; and driving is becoming increasingly expensive and similarly socially frowned upon. And shortly we may again be growing our own food.

Back to the manor our civilization seems headed. The planet, or even your country, is no longer your acceptable horizon. As the 21st century unfolds, it is starting to seem like, at best, your county is.