UK POLICE SEEK POWER TO SPY ON PHONE CALLS, E-MAIL

LONDON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Britain's police and intelligence services are
seeking the right to access records of every telephone call, e-mail and
internet connection made in the UK, the government said on Sunday.

The country's crimefighting and intelligence agencies want all such
communications to be logged, and the information stored for seven years in
vast government-run "data warehouses."

"They have passed a document to us which we are now looking at, but it has
to be stressed that there has been no decision made on this," a Home Office
spokeswoman told Reuters.

"We work very closely with these organisations and want to ensure they have
the tools they need to tackle serious, organised crime, but there are other
important issues, such as human rights, to be considered."

The spokeswoman said the powers sought would require new legislation, but
"that is a long way off at the moment."

The request, from the police, customs and intelligence services, was first
reported on Sunday by The Observer newspaper, which had seen a copy of the
document submitted to the Home Office.

The document said new powers were needed to tackle growing problems of cyber
crime, paedophiles' use of computers to run child porn rings, terrorism and
international drug trafficking, according to The Observer report.

Politicians and campaigners cited by the paper as condemning the idea
included Conservative peer and privacy expert Lord Cope.

"We are sympathetic to the need for greater powers to fight modern types of
crime," he said.

"But vast banks of information on every member of the public can quickly
slip into the world of Big Brother. I will be asking serious questions about
this."

The document, written by Roger Gaspar, deputy director-general of the
National Criminal Intelligence Service, says the new demands are "vital in
the interests of justice."