MI5, Britains top-secret spy organisation, have let it be known that they will be monitoring all email and mobile phone traffic. The job of monitoring has been handed to Capita, who usually get these sort of multi-million pound Government contracts. They will be outsourcing the job to listening centres in India.
Any email which contains trigger words such as "bomb", "jihad", "police state" or "Mandleson" will be red-flagged back in London, where agents will go to see the sender (not weekends) and interview them. It is believed that within a year the backlog will take 10 years to clear.
Mobile phone calls similarly will be monitored in a purpose-built underground facility in Mumbai holding 100,000 "listeners" specially trained to spot key phrases, such as "I'm just getting on the 10.16 from Tunbridge Wells to London Bridge, where I will alight and place a bomb on a number 18 bus".
Nobody was available from Liberty (the human rights organisation) to speak to us but a spokeswoman from Liberty (the upmarket London cloth 'n' gifts store) said she thought it seemed like a good idea.
