14 DAY TRIAL // During her speech in front of the United Kingdom’s Parliament, the Queen has confirmed that the government intends to introduce the controversial legislation that would allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to monitor the Internet and other types of communications.
“My Government intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public, subject to scrutiny of draft clauses,” the Queen said.
Those who oppose the dreaded law are upset with the fact that the technical details are kept secret.
“The Home Office have been very good at saying what the problem is, but seem intent on keeping the technical details of what they are proposing secret. Is it any wonder that the public are scared by a proposal for online surveillance not seen in any other Western democracy,” Nick Pickles of the Big Brother Watch organization wrote after the speech.
“They also seem keen to avoid talking about the Black Boxes for real time monitoring capability that we still believe to be part of the plan,” he added.
For now, we can only speculate about the effects of such a law, but, most likely, UK authorities will try to sweeten the deal and say that everything is being done to protect individuals and not to violate their rights, or to censor them.
When the Home Office mentioned the law last month, its representatives argued that it was necessary for the police to be able to access communications while investigating serious crimes or terrorism.
It remains to be seen how hacktivists react to this news. So far they’ve only targeted the sites of the Home Office and the one of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), but now that the plan is clear, protests can be expected to escalate significantly.
The complete speech can be viewed in the video provided by the UK Parliament:
