Surveillance bill includes internet records storage

The internet activity of everyone in Britain will have to be stored for a year by service providers, under new surveillance law plans.

Police and intelligence officers will be able to see the names of sites people have visited without a warrant, Home Secretary Theresa May said.
But there would be new safeguards over MI5, MI6 and the police spying on the full content of people's web use.
Mrs May told MPs the proposed powers were needed to fight crime and terror.

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The wide-ranging draft Investigatory Powers Bill also contains proposals covering how the state can hack devices and run operations to sweep up large amounts of data as it flows through the internet, enshrining in law the previously covert activities of GCHQ, as uncovered by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The draft bill's measures include:

• Giving a panel of judges the power to block spying operations authorised by the home secretary
• A new criminal offence of "knowingly or recklessly obtaining communications data from a telecommunications operator without lawful authority", carrying a prison sentence of up to two years
• Local councils to retain some investigatory powers, such as surveillance of benefit cheats, but they will not be able to access online data stored by internet firms
• The Wilson doctrine - preventing surveillance of Parliamentarians' communications - to be written into law
• Police will not be able to access journalistic sources without the authorisation of a judge
• A legal duty on British companies to help law enforcement agencies hack devices to acquire information if it is reasonably practical to do so
• Former Appeal Court judge Sir Stanley Burnton is appointed as the new interception of communications commissioner

Mrs May told MPs the draft bill was a "significant departure" from previous plans, dubbed the "snooper's charter" by critics, which were blocked by the Lib Dems, and will "provide some of the strongest protections and safeguards anywhere in the democratic world and an approach that sets new standards for openness, transparency and oversight".

'Better balance'

But Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights campaign Liberty, said: "After all the talk of climbdowns and safeguards, this long-awaited Bill constitutes a breath-taking attack on the internet security of every man, woman and child in our country.
"We must now look to Parliament to step in where ministers have failed and strike a better balance between privacy and surveillance."
And Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who reported the data leaked by Edward Snowden, tweeted that Britain was "about to become only democracy in the world to force internet companies to store people's browsing history".

The proposed legislation, which will have to pass votes in both houses of Parliament, would order communications companies, such as broadband firms, to hold basic details of the services that someone has accessed online - something that has been repeatedly proposed but never enacted.
This duty would include forcing firms to hold a schedule of which websites someone visits and the apps they connect to through computers, smartphones, tablets and other devices.
Police and other agencies would be then able to access these records in pursuit of criminals - but also seek to retrieve data in a wider range of inquiries, such as missing people.
Mrs May stressed that the authorities would not be able to access to everyone's browsing history, just basic data, which was the "modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill".
But investigating officers will not have to obtain a warrant, just get their request signed off by a senior officer, just as they do now - some 517,000 such requests were granted last year.
If officers want to mount more intrusive spying operations, including accessing the content of emails, hacking into computers and tapping phones, they will still need a warrant from the home secretary or another senior minister - 2,700 such warrants were signed last year.
But the draft bill proposes giving a panel of judges the power to veto such requests.

Under the proposals, a team of judges will form a new Investigatory Powers Commission, which the Home Office says will provide world-leading oversight of how police, MI5 and others intercept and gather data.
When police or security agencies apply to intercept someone's communications, their plans would have to be first signed off by the home secretary - as is currently the case - but then approved by one of these judges.
In urgent situations, such as when someone's life is in danger or there is a unique opportunity to gather critical intelligence, the home secretary would have the power to approve an interception warrant without immediate judicial approval.
The judges would also be able to refer serious errors to an outside tribunal which could then decide to tell the individual their data has been illegally collected.
The bill does not propose forcing overseas companies to comply with these orders.
Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, David Cameron said the draft bill was "one of the most important this House will discuss", adding: "We must help the police and security and intelligence services to keep us safe."
London Mayor Boris Johnson warned that the new powers must not be used as an "instrument of oppression", saying the proposed law was "defensible if and only if it's supervised by a judge".
Labour's shadow home secretary Andy Burnham backed the draft bill, saying it was "neither a snooper's charter nor a plan for mass surveillance".
Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said it was a "much improved model" of the legislation he blocked during the coalition government but said the "devil would be in the detail".