Mandatory keyloggers in cybercafes: all in the name of fighting terrorism

What is the price of our Privacy? In the name of fighting terrorism, they are installing keyloggers in Mumbai’s cyber cafes. India’s Cops Get Orwellian:

A few days ago, Mumbai’s police revealed their plans to install keystroke loggers in Mumbai’s cyber cafes, besides imposing licensing requirements on them.

This is done ostensibly to fight terrorism, and here are the implications for you and me. Whenever we surf from a Mumbai cyber café, everything we type will automatically be captured on record. Our email passwords, every message we type, the sites we visit, the pictures we download: everything will be stored in police records, rendering us, effectively, naked in their eyes.

If we buy stuff online, our credit card details will also get saved. Will these end up getting sold in a black market somewhere? Not unlikely. Much as we like to think of governments as benevolent entities that exist to serve us, in reality they comprise individuals with the same human weaknesses as the rest of us, responding to incentives just as we do. The Mumbai police, like all police in India, consists of underpaid people given excessive powers over others, with little accountability. So how do you expect them to behave?

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton) The clue is, Mumbai doesn't have the resources to analyze all the keylogging information for terrorist activity. So why do it at all?

Have a look at this presentation: Terrorists and the Internet. A Justification for Stricter Laws?

In related news: Were those camera's for fighting crime and terrorism? Wi-Fi CCTV cracks down on rogue parking.