It seems to be at only the contemplation stage, and evidently they won’t be recording what you’re saying, only who you’re saying it to. But still, you might want to give the linked article a read and link through to its sources.
Some people say that proposals like this are at worst only an incremental descent toward a surveillance state. After all, all of our private data is already available for viewing if the proper legal constraints are satisfied. That sort of rationale is the real danger, in my opinion. The problem with these continual small concessions we’re asked to give in the name of security is, they’re cumulative. The water in the jacuzzi is gradually coming to a boil but on any given day it’s just a little warmer than yesterday.
As noted by Sir Ken MacDonald, former Director of Public Prosecutions, “the tendency of the state to seek ever more powers of surveillance over its citizens may be driven by protective zeal, but the notion of total security is a paranoid fantasy which would destroy everything that makes living worthwhile.”
I was reminded by a commenter on Reddit of this passage from 1984:
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”
