Spies Among Us

Great new ideas from the EU and the UK

EuropeNews:

'Their plans for the intercept modernisation programme were completely unworkable to begin with - and are becoming more so with every addition they suggest.

'The idea of tracking calls, texts and emails made by people in the country is unspeakably offensive.'

The social networking websites have attracted the interest of security chiefs because they are not covered by rules drafted in Brussels after the 2005 London bombings to track terrorist activity in emails and on the internet.

Social networking companies - also including Bebo - would be required to retain details of every contact a user corresponds with via their websites.

Facebook has 17million UK members while Bebo and MySpace have 10million each.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman Tom Brake blasted the combined EU and UK proposals as a 'snooper's charter' - and pointed to the Government's track record of losing sensitive digital data...

Canada's Rotten Apples...

At ProwomanProlife:

"...The Canadian bioethics community offers an interesting case-study in split personality, being profoundly committed to “women’s right to choose” while being profoundly horrified by its collateral damage, namely the cheapening human life, especially old, sick or disabled life. Whether or not they are able to see the link is anyone’s guess: I sat on numerous presentations decrying the effects of prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis on human diversity but nowhere did I hear a semblance of battle cry to make it stop...Speaking from both sides of one’s mouth will only get you so far in eliminating injustice: by refusing to take a clear stance on the injustice of genetic terminations – including sex-based terminations – the Canadian bioethics community is effectively condoning the elimination of diversity from the Canadian demographic landscape..."