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The Government vs Internet Freedom
Other | Wednesday 4th November 2015 | Tom
New plans proposed by the government mean that everyone’s internet history is to be stored for one year by their service provider. The police will then be able to access previous web pages that you have viewed without a warrant.
The Investigatory Powers Bill tabled by Theresa May on Wednesday is aimed at targeting terrorists and organised criminals that use the internet to communicate safely, however, this bill will also affect those ordinary members of the public who browse the internet at home.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights campaign group Liberty, said that the bill ‘constitutes a breath-taking attack on the internet security of every man, woman and child in our country.’ Asides from combating the threat posed by extremists online, the bill will also allow government officials to continue the surveillance of suspected benefit cheats.
Such bills take us one step closer to the feared ‘nanny state’, founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, claimed that Apple may be upset over the government's ban on encrypted devices, tweeting: ‘I would like to see Apple refuse to sell IPhone in UK if gov’t bans end-to-end encryption. Does parliament dare be that stupid?’
Five things you don’t want the government seeing on your history
1) Those embarrassing trousers that you are selling on ebay!
O.K so maybe this isn't the worst thing on your internet history but it is something you would prefer no one knew about. After all you're only trying to make a few extra quid.
2) Stupid questions that you’ve googled but would never ask in real life.
Ranging from easy spellings to obscure facts Google is where many of us go when we have a question that we don't know the answer to. Lets just hope that the government doesn't realise that secretly we're not as smart as we like to belive we are...
3) The fact that you still surf the web with Internet Explorer, ssssh.
While the majority of us use Chrome or Safari you still use Internet Explorer out of some sense of twisted loyalty to Microsoft.
4) The repeated stalking of someone on Facebook.
If this information gets released you better start working on a machine that converts shame to energy and solve the world's energy crisis, or lets just hope that one day you don't put their name as a status instead of searching for them.
5) Porn.
Pretty self explanatory
