Monday, January 26, 2009

"cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith" Day



I have just been invited to join a Facebook Group called "cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith" Day. The blurb starts with a quote, "No government of any colour is to be trusted with such a roadmap to our souls" but does not attribute it.

It continues: The government has unveiled plans for a private company to run a "superdatabase" that will track all our emails, calls, texts, internet use and so on. This is an immense infringement of civil liberties, not to mention a major risk to our private data - but it won't make us any safer. The sheer amount of information that the Government intends to collect will be impossible to analyse properly and will undoubtedly turn up false positives while missing potential security threats amongst the morass of spam emails and private chat.

So, for one day, we should send a message to the Home Office - "you want to see our emails? Ok then, here they are then!". We do this by simply cc'ing or bcc'ing every email we send (and if you like, forwarding every email you receive), regardless of importance or content, to public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk.

That way Jacqui Smith and the Home Office will be able to see how difficult it will be to get on with their actual work - keeping our country safe - when they're trying to monitor every harmless private thing we say and do.

All we need to know now is which day?

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