[bribriinlondon]

This is why it is critical to encrypt all communications using a trusted provider or doing it yourself with PGP, if you have the skills to do it.

Whether or not this interception is currently legal / illegal, this has been happening on a massive, global scale. The UK is just catching up to France / USA / Canada in this regard. The EU legislation on the books for Saas, ISPs to log all their traffic for an indeterminate time is also a huge cause for concern.

Shameless plug: Use PrivateSky.

[pwaring]

The problem with encryption is that, as far as I'm aware, it doesn't hide the sender/recipient information. You might not be able to read the content, but intelligence agencies are just as interested in who is communicating with whom as they are in the content of the messages.

Oh, and we have a law in the UK which makes it a criminal offence, punishable by 2-5 years in prison, to refuse to hand over the private key so that your data can be decrypted. :(