The states anti-privacy bandwagon uses the most misleading language to blackmail technology companies into illegal surveillance
As he will have wished and we might have predicted, the bandwagon created by the GCHQ boss, Robert Hannigan, is gathering momentum. His demand that the internet companies abandon their stance on privacy now carries the weight of the British government.
Addressing the Society of Editors conference on Tuesday, Sajid Javid, the culture secretary, dismissed the right to privacy in the form of the right to be forgotten as little more than an excuse for well-paid lawyers to hide the shady pasts of wealthy businessmen and the sexual indiscretions of sporting celebrities. Last weekend the former home secretary David Blunkett jumped on board, accusing technology companies that offer encryption of helping terrorists to co-ordinate genocide and foster fear and instability around the world. Bernard Hogan Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said this month that space and technology firms must do more to frustrate paedophiles, murderers and terrorists.
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