Theresa May, who retains her position as Home Secretary after last week’s general election, has indicated that bringing back the “Snooper’s Charter” is a priority for the UK’s new Conservative government. According to the Guardian, she told the BBC: “David Cameron has already said, and I’ve said, that a Conservative government would be giving the security agencies and law enforcement agencies the powers that they need to ensure they’re keeping up to date as people communicate with communications data.”

May made clear that it was only because of a veto by the Liberal Democrats in the previous coalition government that the Draft Communications Data Bill (aka the Snooper’s Charter) was dropped when it was first presented. She added: “we are determined to bring that [legislation] through, because we believe that is necessary to maintain the capabilities for our law enforcement agencies such that they can continue to do the excellent job, day in and day out, of keeping us safe and secure.”

In its manifesto, the Conservative party wrote: “we continue to reject any suggestions of sweeping, authoritarian measures that would threaten our hard-won freedoms.” It also attempted to distinguish between metadata and content retention: “We will keep up to date the ability of the police and security services to access communications data—the ‘who, where, when and how’ of a communication, but not its content.”

Read the Full Article: Source – Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/uk-government-will-bring-back-snoopers-charter-snowden-warns-of-dangers/

 

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