Home PCs fair grounds for warrantless snooping in the name of security? [U.K]

[Travelsonic]

Police set to step up hacking of home PCs - Times Online

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.

The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.

Because a warrant is just so hard to get... :doh :roll:

 

[Kernel Sanders]

What's been happening to the UK lately? Do these ridiculous measures actually have popular support?

 

[RightinNYC]

What's been happening to the UK lately? Do these ridiculous measures actually have popular support?

It's not the UK alone that's the culprit for this, it's the EU altogether.

Under the Brussels edict, police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property. The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

Burden of proof is low:

A remote search can be granted if a senior officer says he “believes” that it is “proportionate” and necessary to prevent or detect serious crime — defined as any offence attracting a jail sentence of more than three years.

The authorities could break into a suspect’s home or office and insert a “key-logging” device into an individual’s computer. This would collect and, if necessary, transmit details of all the suspect’s keystrokes. “It’s just like putting a secret camera in someone’s living room,” he said.

Police might also send an e-mail to a suspect’s computer. The message would include an attachment that contained a virus or “malware”. If the attachment was opened, the remote search facility would be covertly activated. Alternatively, police could park outside a suspect’s home and hack into his or her hard drive using the wireless network.

All in all, that's pretty ****ed up on the part of the UK for having such a law, and on the EU for being so eager to take advantage of it.

 

[Wessexman]

It's not the UK alone that's the culprit for this, it's the EU altogether.

It is the EU, New labour and the general British elite. They are all the same sort of scum these days with all their authoritarian bull**** from smoking bans to diversity officers.

A lot of it is similar to modern liberalism, there are Americans on here who are groupies for the destruction of private property which goes under the name "smoking ban". The UK is a poster child for what happens when an organised liberal elite gets hold of the media(or enough of it.) and establishment.

 

[emdash]

it's a very slippery slope.