So, despite Home Secretary Wacky Jacqui's decision to scrap the Interception Modernisation Programme (or at least the database aspects of it), she's still desperate for the security services to get their mitts on our internet activity.
The Register today (Jacqui's secret plan to 'Master the Internet') revealed details of the grandiosely named Mastering the Internet (MTI) project, which will see GCHQ using DPI techniques to monitor internet traffic:
It will include thousands of deep packet inspection probes inside communications providers' networks, as well as massive computing power at the intelligence agency's Cheltenham base, "the concrete doughnut".
According to The Register's sources,
MTI is a core piece of the government's Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). On Monday of last week, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that under IMP, rather than build a central warehouse, responsibility for storing details of who contacts whom, when and where will be imposed on communications providers.
So, despite a consultaion on the IMP being underway, the contracts are already out to implement many of the technologies required. Perhaps it's time for this intrusive government to go.