Submit Response is a weblog by Jack Mottram, a Careless Texts Cost Lives
The excellent Spyblog reports on a story in The Sun - Cops swoop on fan’s txt:
PUNK rock fan Mike Devine sent an innocent text message containing lyrics by The Clash - and was quizzed as a terror suspect after it was INTERCEPTED.
Computer worker Mike, 35, was confronted by a Special Branch cop at his office and taken for a grilling.
He was stunned to be shown a printout of his text which contained the words gun and jet airliner.
Okay, so The Sun isn’t exactly the most reputable source out there, but if true, it represents a step up in intrusive surveillance of our everyday communications.
And, as Spyblog points out, either David Blunkett has expressley given permission to spooks to scan SMS messages for dodgy content, or the security services were acting illegally.
The Register and the Evening Standard have a different take on the affair, quoting a Somerset & Avon Police source claiming that the text was mistakenly sent to a woman in Bristol who alerted the authorities, with The Register casting doubt on this explanation. (It does sound just like something a spy would make up to cover her tracks, no? And, like, does Somerset & Avon sound like a real place to you?)
Perhaps readers braver than I would like to try sending out a few inflammatory SMS messages and waiting to see whether any Special Branch goons pop by for a quiet chat?
don’t tempt me, would the words bombs, terrorist and london bridge do, d’you think?
Posted by Donna at 9pm on 03.06.04
I ran into Osama B.L last night and he handed me his plans for mass destruction of certain Central London locations (such as Thames House, Vauxhall Cross, New Scotland Yard, FCO Pall Mall, etc.) His high explosive, cemtex based, Israeli manufactured, non-hyphenated, rocket propelled grenaded, GCHQ attention seeking devices are on their way now. Morgwenstow, Menwith Hill and the International Echelon Pact are listening. Super computers are being ordered to listen to transmissions such as this one. The digital age is the era of easy spying and we are providing “them” with stuff to spy on. Maybe some of it’s worth spying on. 99.999% isn’t.
Check your logs Jack, maybe they’re onto us!
Have a look at http://www.stand.org.uk/
Posted by Donny at 10am on 04.06.04
hmmm. and then microsoft translated the iliad for messenger. we’ve got the story over on our blog:
http://translationexchange.blogspot.com
Posted by nicky at 4pm on 07.06.04