Retaining the Records

In MediaGuardian (free reg required), a report that Britain's home secretary Charles Clarke is pushing again for a move to compel Internet and phone companies to retain their records of traffic on millions of private emails, text messages and mobile phone calls for up to three years:

Mr Clarke stressed that the compulsory scheme would not mean spying on the content of any email or text message: "Telecommunications records ... which record what calls were made from what number to another number at what time are of very important use for intelligence. I am not talking about the content of any call but the fact that a call was made." Much of the data are kept for billing purposes, but only for a short period

Even so, this seems like a fairly major infringement of privacy and civil liberties.