What a carry on

As reported by The Sunday Times and The Register, Jacqui Smith's recent announcement that the government was not going ahead with plans for a massive snooping database was a lie. According to The Register:

"Spy chiefs are already spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a mass internet surveillance system, despite Jacqui Smith's announcement earlier this week that proposals for a central warehouse of communications data had been dumped on privacy grounds.

The system - uncovered today by The Register and The Sunday Times - is being installed under a GCHQ project called Mastering the Internet (MTI). 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".

Sources with knowledge of the project said contacts have already been awarded to private sector partners."