WRITTEN ON October 5th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: user-oriented, Foundation of Trust, Political engagement, What do we want?

The story of the insolent “Intercept Modernisation Programme” breaks in the Sunday Times today

Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain. GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project. Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers – thought to be BT and Vodafone. BT has nearly 5m internet customers.

It covers pretty much what I’ve heard over the last 15 months, except for the angle that an under-pressure SOCA is pushing hard for this in the teeth of opposition from Acpo and the Police Superintendents Assn.

Intercept Modernisation has a possibly instructive echo with last night’s “World’s Srtictest Parents”, an Alabama couple who searched their guests’ luggage, mobile phones and iPods to howls of outrage from the initially delinquent teenage British visitors. What emerged, once again in this remarkable TV series, was a relationship loving care, trust and respect. Again the catalyst for change was putting the self-centred and obnoxious young people to work for the truly needy, in this case homeless people in a rough part of town.

So, inthe Intercept Modernisation case: who needs to change? Are the British population unruly, insolent vacuous teenagers who need to be snooped on by a loving GCHQ? Or does government need to learn to invest in public services according to the needs of people who suffer instead of spending taxpayers money in a vain attempt to ease their fear of losing control?