But the Home Office’s frankly strategic management of the news was effective enough to capture the headlines yesterday and now the Home Sec has finally waded in.

She adopted the well-worn line that the interwebs is a dangerous place for kids because it isn’t just used by ordinary folk but also by horrible criminals and nasty paedophiles.

May added that the police and spooks already gather data from phone records to help solve crime and protect the British public against terrorist attacks.

“Last year, police smashed a major international child pornography website based in Lincolnshire. They then used internet data analysis to find other suspected paedophiles,” she said.

“Such data has been used in every security service terrorism investigation and 95 per cent of serious organised crime investigations over the last 10 years. We cannot afford to lose this vital law enforcement tool. But currently online communication by criminals can’t always be tracked.”

[…]

Some have questioned where indeed the Lib Dems have been on this civil liberties debate. Junior Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone labelled the press coverage of the net-snooping plans as a “complete nonsense”, before repeating Clegg’s assertion that “no central database” would be created for such a system.

So, that’s all right then! ®

via Home Sec: Web snoop law will snare PAEDOS, TERRORISTS • The Register.