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Police in Europe to engage in secret computer hacking
5th January, 2009

An EU strategy against cybercrime has encouraged police across Europe to access personal computers without the knowledge of owners.

The BBC has reported the plan has begun to worry civil libertarians in the UK, concerned that police will be able to hack into people's computers without a court warrant.

The plan, drawn up by the Council of the European Union, suggests European countries could introduce remote searches in the fight against cyber crime-fighting.

The UK Home Office has said the EU agreement would not affect UK policing as officers are able to do a "small number" of such operations under existing law.

British law already allows police to remotely access computers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which allows surveillance to "prevent or detect serious crime".

The European plan is not legally binding and there is no timescale for implementing the strategy, but Jacques Barrot, Vice-President of the European Commission, said in a statement that the goal would be to ensure EU countries are committed to the fight against computer crime.

Source

i read this story elsewhere and its the usual scare mongering stuff

while feasable the police dont have the resources to do this whole scale and they are looking at targetting specific individuals... on top of which there talking about physically entering a property to attach\install key logging software....

so ok they do that no worries.... but im sure most of us would notice a new piece of hardware attached to our equipment ?? and i regularly scan my pc for crap\key logger etc..... so bring it on lol

if your that worried about being trapped by the authorities im sure youd be taking care of your privacy as part of the everyday housekeeping