From: Ad 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1409395.ece

"Almost 450,000 requests were made to monitor people’s telephone
calls, e-mails and post by secret agencies and other authorised bodies in
just over a year, the spying watchdog said yesterday.

In the first report of its kind from the Interceptions of Communications
Commissioner, it was also revealed that nearly 4,000 errors were reported
in a 15-month period from 2005 to 2006. While most appeared to concern
“lower-level data” such as requests for telephone lists and individual
e-mail addresses, 67 were mistakes concerning direct interception of
communications.

Sir Swinton Thomas, the report’s author, described the figure as “unacceptably high”.

The disclosures came as Tony Blair admitted that the fingerprints of
everyone obtaining identity cards could be checked against nearly a million
unsolved crimes.

The Prime Minister sparked further controversy over ID cards after replying
to 28,000 people who had signed an e-petition calling on him to scrap the
scheme. He said that the register would help the police to bring those
guilty of serious crimes to justice. “They will be able, for example, to
compare the fingerprints found at the scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes
against the information held on the register.”

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said of Mr Blair’s response to the
petitioners: “This is a massive move away from the presumption in Britain
that a man is innocent until proven guilty. Tony Blair has admitted that
the authorities will go on a fishing expedition through the files of
innocent people to try to match them up to unsolved crimes.

“This is completely contrary to undertakings given throughout the course of
the Bill in the Houses of Parliament and would be a major invasion of
privacy. Mr Blair clearly does not realise that fingerprint technology is
not infallible. With the vast number of crimes involved it is virtually
guaranteed there will be errors and massive miscarriages of justice in a
number of cases."

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the Liberty civil rights campaign group,
said: “Public confidence in the Government’s respect for our personal
privacy has never been lower. There is an urgent need to rebuild that
trust. The Prime Minister’s ambitions for ID cards seems to grow as public
confidence in the scheme diminishes. This will become a national suspects
database.”

On the 450,000 data requests, she said: “There is a creeping contempt for
our personal privacy.” "

Who the hell actually believes that any gov given a db won't trawl?

Defies belief.

So they give undertakings etc but what is an undertaking form Blair & co worth?

Adam

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