Whadda ya mean, I've got 100,000 unread messages?

Dave Coull · Whadda ya mean, I've got 100,000 unread messages?

If there's one thing that really gets Jacqui Smith going, it's using technology for a good old snoop into the private lives of the public. Well, I've got some good news for the Home Secretary. On 15 June, thousands of civil liberties protesters will be flooding her inbox with a copy of every email they send that day.

"cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith Day" began as a Facebook group that now boasts over 6,000 members. Its founder, Martin Allan Grey, established the group in response to plans for an "über-database" to record all private communications between UK citizens. Smith's Orwellian-sounding "Interception Modernisation Programme" (IMP) will be run by a private firm with money allocated from "secret intelligence service budgets". IMP was dropped from the Communications Data Bill; instead, "senior civil servants will discreetly run the project to swerve potential political opposition to a scheme which would retain details of every phone call, email, and web browsing session of every UK citizen," according to technology news site The Register.

Grey writes:

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!'. 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.

The campaign against IMP now has its own website and supporters include Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, the hilarious I hate Jacqui Smith blog and the Bishop of Buckingham.

I don't know how long the Rt. Hon. member for Redditch spends checking her email in the morning, but she might want to put aside a little extra time on 15 June.

Holebender

Ooh... I think I'll be joining in with that campaign.

jamesieboy

I'm surprised anybody is surprised.

That is the nature of the Labour Party. That's the way they are.

Self-aggrandisement is their whole purpose in life; their whole raison'd'etre.

Either in Westminster, Dundee, Birmingham, Doncaster, Renfrewshire, West Dunbartonshire ... the list is endless.

Remember the Red Rose dinner in Jack McConnell's constituency (Wishaw)
a few years ago? Press sources said it was like a 'Who's Who' of the local criminal fraternity.

Many were of the impression that those cheeky chappies from the west of Scotland gangster community had been given the green light by elements within the 'People's Party' as to where the place was to influence affairs in the 'business' community.

Dave Coull

Holebender

Indeed. No surprises here, except for the pleasant surprise of finding there is a campaign getting ready to flood the Home Office with e-mail on one particular day.

jamesieboy

Maybe I should've said 'outraged'.

I'm surprised anyone is still outraged any longer.

You expect this sort of thing from the Labour hijos de puta.

And every other day.

Anyway, good luck with your campaign.

magister ludi

Conlige suspectos semper habitos

And exactly what is this puerile campaign to flood Ms Smith's "in box" , for a day, going to achieve?

Nothing.

Perhaps I'm missing the point. If so i'm sure someone will tell me. Seriously, please do, because I just can't see what this will achieve.

Open browser. Edit Select. All. Delete.

Job Done.

Now, bottom line is this:
Nobody cares about the content of your emails.
On one level it's impossible to read all of them anyway,
and even if you could "automate" the process to look for "suspicious" words and phrases there is nobody who would be silly enough to send an unencrypted email if they were up to something dodgy.

On another level, "they" would actually be breaking the law if they intercepted your email and read it without the necessary approvals.

What this law ( or more accurately, series of laws ) is about is tracking who talks to who, how often and when.

Dave Coull

Lord Pitsligo

I'll send her some porn. She can forward it to her husband.

Holebender

How thoughtful.

Lord Pitsligo

magister ludi

The Home Office had their very own link to a japanese porn site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7986483.stm

Dave Coull

Shagpile

agentmancuso