New Data Communications Bill to store everyoneâs thoughts for a year
Plans to monitor the contents of everyoneâs head came a step closer today with a proposed amendment to the governmentâs draft Data Communications Bill. Under the proposals all beliefs, intentions and ideas will be gathered using the very latest brain imaging satellites and then stored for 12 months in a vast government database at GCHQ, Cheltenham. âThere is absolutely nothing sinister about monitoring peopleâs thoughts,â said Home Secretary Theresa May. âIf people arenât thinking anything wrong then they have nothing to hide.â The proposed Data Communications Bill already requires service providers to store peopleâs activity on social network sites, webmail, internet phone calls and online gaming. âThis is all very well,â said Mrs May, â but it still leaves open the possibility that people may be secretly storing information inside their heads. All we want to do is close this loophole.â The proposal already has the support of Director of Public Prosecutions Kier Starmer. âResearch shows that the vast majority of crimes start off life in somebodyâs head,â he explained. âOf course defendants will still have the right to remain silent, but in future anything they think may be taken down and used in evidence against them.â Civil liberties campaigners are outraged by the proposals. âThis is a gross infringement of peopleâs privacy,â said director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti. âMonitoring the contents of peopleâs minds is totally mental.â âYes, we know these people are outraged,â said Mrs May. âThey donât need to tell us. Weâve already seen what they have to think.â Responding to criticisms, Mrs May insisted that all proper safeguards will be put in place. âAccess to peopleâs thoughts will be restricted to official government agencies,â she assured, âThe Police, the intelligence services, HMRC and, to save time, anyone working for News International.â However, there still remain security concerns following a pilot study of the system in which a civil servant accidentally left the entire thoughts of Nantwich on a train. âThese are just teething troubles,â said a Home Office official. âWe checked the records and nobody in Nantwich had thought anything interesting for a year.â Mrs May rejected claims that the proposals would end up creating a âThought Policeâ. âThis is typical paranoid scaremongering,â she said. âThe important thing for people to remember is that the Thought Police are all in their minds.â