The Register recalls that in 2000, then National Criminal Intelligence Service director general John Abbott wrote to the Guardian with this assurance:

Conspiracy theorists must not be allowed to get away with the ridiculous notion that law enforcement would or even could monitor all emails. The intelligence agencies have neither the inclination nor the resources, nor the legal ability to monitor the massive amounts of electronic communications that flow through the UK every day. It does not happen with letters or telephones and it will not with emails.

Nine years later that's exactly what the government now proposes. Civil servants working on the interception modernisation programme are now considering a technique called deep packet inspection (DPI) which will do all that Abbott said was impossible.

"First, spy chiefs want to create a massive central repository of communications traffic data," suggests The Register's report. "Such data contains the powerful details of who contacts whom, how, when and where."

Most major ISPs and telecoms firms already retain much of this data, but some do not, and many email, VoIP, instant messaging and social networking services retain little.

The Register explains:

This in turn would facilitate the second aim of the system, the interception of the content of internet communications. As now, this would require a warrant under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), but each wiretap would be much easier to implement.

A consultation will follow but given the performance in the House of Lords of the security minister Lord West – when he dodged a question from Baroness Miller which suggested that DPI would be used to identify people from their communications – it will almost certainly follow the pattern of most government consultations.

The government cannot openly admit to the depth of its surveillance techniques having ruled them out as conspiracy theory so little time ago.

The Register ends with this:

Security experts including the University of Cambridge's Professor Richard Clayton have pointed out that in such circumstances, where DPI technology is installed, the line between communications traffic data and the content of the communication could become blurred.

We must conclude that intelligence agencies now have both "the inclination and resources to monitor the massive amounts of electronic communications that flow through the UK every day". All they seek now is the legal ability, almost certain to be given to them by a parliament which, with a touching lack of dissent, accepts the benign intentions of the executive and the intelligence agencies.