David Cameron wants fresh push on communications data
Quote:
David Cameron wants a fresh push after the next election to "modernise" laws to allow monitoring of people's online activity, after admitting there was little chance of progress before then.
The prime minister told a parliamentary committee that gathering communications data was "politically contentious" but vital to keep citizens safe.
He said TV crime dramas illustrated the value of monitoring mobile data.
A communications data bill was dropped last year after Lib Dem objections.
The idea of the bill was to allow government access to details of who called whom, when and where - although ministers said it would not cover the content of calls.
It would also have extended laws to cover new online forms of communication, such as internet-based phone services like Skype, and there were suggestions it could also give intelligence services real-time access to the data.
'Raised questions'
Critics called it a "snooper's charter", as they had when the previous Labour government floated a similar plan. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who had initially backed the idea of a bill, said the finalised proposals "went too far".
(snip)
[Cameron said] "In the most serious crimes [such as] child abduction communications data... is absolutely vital. I love watching, as I probably should stop telling people, crime dramas on the television. There's hardly a crime drama where a crime is solved without using the data of a mobile communications device."
(snip)
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Well, there's a justification I wasn't expecting to be used to renew interest in the Snooper's Charter: Fictional TV detectives regularly solve crime using communications data therefore real detectives need it.