UNITED KINGDOM – Relenting to public outcry, Prime Minister David Cameron announced the government will ditch controversial web surveillance plans and just friend people on Facebook instead.
The snooper’s charter was met with fierce criticism due to serious privacy fears, prompting the government to turn to the popular social network to do “pretty much everything we were planning anyway.”
The Home Office hailed the new scheme was vital to “investigate serious crime, terrorism,” and most importantly “knowing when an individual changed their relationship status.”
New plans
Under amended surveillance plans, ministers would friend everyone in Britain to gain the ability to see who a person had been in contact with, what sites a person visited and what the weather was like outside a person’s window at any given moment.
Home Secretary Theresa May earlier confirmed the existing Communications Data Bill would be replaced with Facebook’s privacy policy, admitting there was “no point in reinventing the wheel”.
She said the government wanted to avoid the backlash from concerned Britain’s while still enabling the government to find out every last detail of what you get up to on the internet.
And in direct response to privacy advocates, May suggested worried citizens start using Google+ if they wanted complete and utter privacy.
‘You can trust us’
David Cameron backed the proposals as “crucial to combating a new age of criminal threat that we must be ready to deal with” before leaning over to Nick Clegg and asking how to friend London.
Mr Cameron went on to say: “We acknowledge the criticism of the Communications Data bill but this government remains committed to providing security services with new powers to monitor internet activity.”
“Of course we understand the notion that someone would be keeping a constant watch on all online activity would cross the line into a dark place where the expectation of privacy is a thing of the past.”
He assured the public that “those plans have been halted and we’ll just follow you on Facebook”.
The Prime Minister was confident criminals now had no place to hide from the consequences of their illegal activities, “or their office Christmas do”.
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