Here comes “Big Brother”!
The new UK email law has sparked controversies. Critics say that this email law, in which Internet companies in the UK have to keep a record for every message that a person sends and receives, is a violation of human rights. “Prevention of cybercrime” is the government’s defense to this charges. Although the government’s defense is that having a central database is a big step to reduce cybercrime sounds reasonable enough, there are still various critics who view this as a crime because it is a violation of the individual’s privacy.
What’s the plan?
The UK government would be spending 12 billion Euros to implement this law. Emails are not the only ones to be tracked down. The government will also look into phone calls and text messages. The central database would be used to fight terrorism, which in the past years, threatened the security of UK. But the question is, is the government trustworthy enough to have access to almost everything?
Why the controversy?
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, a human rights advocacy group, said that this law violates civil liberty. There are other human rights advocacy groups that are against the implementation of the new UK email law. Though the UK government sounds sincere, these critics have posed reasonable arguments for questioning the motive for this new email law. After all, this law can actually be viewed as the government’s first step in paving the way to make Orwell’s “Big Brother” a reality.