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The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, regulating the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance and investigation, and covering the interception of communications. It was introduced by the Tony Blair Labour government ostensibly to take account of technological change such as the growth of the Internet and strong encryption.
Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.
Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizations, but it may also be carried out by corporations. Depending on each nation's laws and judicial systems, the legality of and the permission required to engage in mass surveillance varies. It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes. It is often distinguished from targeted surveillance.
Carnivore, later renamed DCS1000, was a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that was designed to monitor email and electronic communications. It used a customizable packet sniffer that could monitor all of a target user's Internet traffic. Carnivore was implemented in October 1997. By 2005 it had been replaced with improved commercial software.
MAINWAY is a database maintained by the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) containing metadata for hundreds of billions of telephone calls made through the largest telephone carriers in the United States, including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
A government database collects information for various reasons, including climate monitoring, securities law compliance, geological surveys, patent applications and grants, surveillance, national security, border control, law enforcement, public health, voter registration, vehicle registration, social security, and statistics.
The Communications Data Bill was intended to create powers to collect data concerning people's phone, e-mail and web-browsing habits for mass surveillance in the United Kingdom. The government database would have included telephone numbers dialed, the websites visited and addresses to which e-mails are sent but not the text of e-mails or recorded telephone conversations.
Mastering the Internet (MTI) is a mass surveillance project led by the British communications intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) budgeted at over £1 billion. According to reports in The Register and The Sunday Times in early May 2009, contracts with a total value of £200m had already been awarded to suppliers.
The Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) is a UK government initiative to extend the government's capabilities for lawful interception and storage of communications data. It would involve the logging of every telephone call, email and text message between every inhabitant of the UK, and is intended to extend beyond the realms of conventional telecommunications media to log communications within social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
The Draft Communications Data Bill was draft legislation proposed by then Home Secretary Theresa May in the United Kingdom which would require Internet service providers and mobile phone companies to maintain records of each user's internet browsing activity, email correspondence, voice calls, internet gaming, and mobile phone messaging services and store the records for 12 months. Retention of email and telephone contact data for this time is already required by the Data Retention Regulations 2014. The anticipated cost was £1.8 billion.
Tempora is the codeword for a formerly-secret computer system that is used by the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). This system is used to buffer most Internet communications that are extracted from fibre-optic cables, so these can be processed and searched at a later time. It was tested from 2008 and became operational in late 2011.
XKeyscore is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other intelligence agencies, including the Australian Signals Directorate, Canada's Communications Security Establishment, New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, Japan's Defense Intelligence Headquarters, and Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst.
The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First and Second World Wars, mass surveillance continued throughout the Cold War period, via programs such as the Black Chamber and Project SHAMROCK. The formation and growth of federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA institutionalized surveillance used to also silence political dissent, as evidenced by COINTELPRO projects which targeted various organizations and individuals. During the Civil Rights Movement era, many individuals put under surveillance orders were first labelled as integrationists, then deemed subversive, and sometimes suspected to be supportive of the communist model of the United States' rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.
The use of electronic surveillance by the United Kingdom grew from the development of signal intelligence and pioneering code breaking during World War II. In the post-war period, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was formed and participated in programmes such as the Five Eyes collaboration of English-speaking nations. This focused on intercepting electronic communications, with substantial increases in surveillance capabilities over time. A series of media reports in 2013 revealed bulk collection and surveillance capabilities, including collection and sharing collaborations between GCHQ and the United States' National Security Agency. These were commonly described by the media and civil liberties groups as mass surveillance. Similar capabilities exist in other countries, including western European countries.
During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.
The Data Intercept Technology Unit is a unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States, which is responsible for intercepting telephone calls and e-mail messages of terrorists and foreign intelligence targets inside the US. It is not known when DITU was established, but the unit already existed in 1997.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama favored some levels of mass surveillance. He has received some widespread criticism from detractors as a result. Due to his support of certain government surveillance, some critics have said his support violated acceptable privacy rights, while others dispute or attempt to provide justification for the expansion of surveillance initiatives under his administration.
This timeline of global surveillance disclosures from 2013 to the present day is a chronological list of the global surveillance disclosures that began in 2013. The disclosures have been largely instigated by revelations from the former American National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The modern capabilities and legal framework for mass surveillance in the United Kingdom developed under successive governments of the United Kingdom since the late 20th century.
References
- ↑ "Spy chiefs plot £12bn IT spree for comms überdatabase". The Register. 7 October 2008.
- ↑ Wright, Joss. "The government's proposal for data communications surveillance will be invasive and costly with minimal effectiveness". British Politics and Policy at LSE.
- ↑ Leppard, David (5 October 2008). "There's no hiding place as spy HQ plans to see all" . The Sunday Times. London. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
- ↑ "Concern over giant database idea". BBC News. 15 October 2008. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
The government's terror watchdog has expressed concern about proposals for a giant database to store details of all phone calls, e-mails and internet use.
- ↑ "Giant database plan 'Orwellian'". BBC News. 15 October 2008. Retrieved 17 October 2008.
Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "The government's Orwellian plans for a vast database of our private communications are deeply worrying." "I hope that this consultation is not just a sham exercise to soft-soap an unsuspecting public."
- ↑ Home Office denies prototype intercept database
- ↑ Dunt, Ian (27 April 2009). "Home Office rules out telephone surveillance database". politics.co.uk. Archived from the original on 27 May 2011. Retrieved 27 April 2009.
- ↑ "UK.gov to spend £2bn on ISP tracking". The Register. 27 April 2009.
- ↑ "LSE IMP Briefing" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 June 2012. Retrieved 17 July 2009.
- ↑ APPG IMP Hearing Agenda 1 July 2009 [ permanent dead link ]
- ↑ A u-turn on reversing the surveillance state
- ↑ "Strategic Defence and Security Review" (Press release). Department for International Development. Archived 11 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Mitchell, Stewart (20 February 2012). "Anger over mass web surveillance plans". PC Pro. Archived from the original on 18 December 2014. Retrieved 20 February 2012.