I read with interest this blog about UK government control of the web.

http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/12/destroying-web.html

The questions are: "Would they?" & "Could they?"

I invite comment! 

"would they?"-yeh ,IF they could.
"could they?"-nope. Theyd just be constantly chasing their tales as its just too big a thing to control with too many knowledgeable people out there who could get around whatever "controls" they try to exert. To me its like the issue of ID cards. Yes it would work on the vast majority of people but ultimately its a waste of money as the people you really want to control ("terrorists" etc ) will always find a way around it

Very scarey

I do not trust this shower not to abuse them

I hope the next lot repeal this

Given how much data flows every second, they dont have a hope in hell of monitoring it, let alone storing it for future reference.

Having just been involved in the implimentation of port mirroring, which is intended to support legal intercept, its a lot harder to do then you would ever imagine.

For a start they would need a new network and double the capacity just to even route the data to even a local collection point!

Just monitoring certain individuals is a logistical nightmare, let alone millions of people.