By Jo Best, 14 November 2003 17:00
NEWS The 'snoopers' charter' - through which the government has forced the monitoring of every phone call made, website visited and email sent - officially became law on Thursday.
While the almost universal rejection of the data retention orders from the opposition was widely expected to derail the governments plans, last minute political manoeuvring saw it through the House of Lords.
Deputy opposition leader, Baroness Blatch had proposed a 'fatality motion' a way of killing off the Order in an event that happens only a few times in a century but it was scuppered when the government threatened to return the favour by nixing every Order that any future Tory government tried to pass.
And so the proposals were passed unopposed.
But a couple of amendments were made that went down well with privacy campaigners: the Interception of Communications Commissioner will now have to have to inform individuals when their privacy has been improperly invaded and Baroness Blatch said that the government would have face a Private Members Bill designed to make the Order more palatable to the opposition.
Despite claims from legal authorities that the Order contravenes the European Convention on human rights, the Order will now oblige all communication service providers to keep records of who their customers phoned, where from, who and when they emailed for 12 months, as well as recording what websites they visited.
While the government claims that the Act is necessary for purposes of national security, a number of authorities not known for their anti-terrorist activities, including the ministry for gambling, will be able to get their hands on users details.
Simon Davies, head of Privacy International, has vowed to fight the law through the courts and puts its successful political passage through the Lords down to the ISPs themselves: "They have acted in a reprehensible manner all the way through, sitting on the sidelines. They never raised the whole issue of privacy, they just had a fever-like concern to get their costs underwritten by the government", he told silicon.com. "They should hang their heads in shame."
James Blessing, technical development at business ISP Zen, says that service providers are caught between a rock and a hard place, defending their users' interests and at the same time having to be seen to be doing the 'right thing'.
"With an act like this, you can't fight the idea you can't turn round and say you won't monitor your users after 9/11 but you can fight bits of the Act, but then you're seen as petty and people think it's just a case of ISPs not wanting to spend money", he told silicon.com.
The Act's passage through the Lords wasn't the worst case of political wrangling however. It seems the big names in the ISP world have led the way in smoothing the legislation's path through parliament.
Blessing said: "BT couldn't be seen to be objecting, AOL are a bespoke service with filtering and controls already in place, Freeserve don't want to be seen to be kicking up a fuss and with the smaller ISPs, they're just trying to carve out a niche and keep things going."
Comments
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1. anonymous
BIG BROTHER is alive and kicking in Westminster
2. anonymous
This is truly appalling. The sooner we get rid of this government the better.
3. Tony B.
With any luck PGP.com will see a huge rise in it's hit rate. And perhaps we should all talk in code now.
Does the pigeon take sugar in his milkshake...
No, the train doesn't pass this way until Thursday...
Wink wink.
4. Stephen FRY
Well, we have two choices - live in a nice liberal democracy and allow that to be exploited by those that would rather we lived in their type of regime and therefore do nothing - no monitoring no ID cards or whatever; or monitor traffic, have ID cards and have a degree of security that makes it difficult for idiots with bombs strapped around them to blow me up - Our Choice.
5. Simon
Emails must not be monitored as goes telephone calls as business transfer sensitive information. This would be equivalent to industrial espionage and will the Government and it's officials be liable to the same laws that we have to adhere to??
6. anonymous
Well, this is one way to KILL OFF the increase in traffic on the internet. So another step to the BIG BROTHER has got nearer. What with ID cards, Mobile phone tracking (easily done by GPS etc), and now what you write down, I think we are all now at a point in which we should call Time Out. Personally, my mobile phone is only on when needed, I never carry any ID unless travelling away from home. And I only use the Internet as a last resort. I think the goverment will find that they have now killed of the promise of making the internet available to everyone, and technology will now start to decline again. The country will return to the old 'A country of shopkeepers' mentallity of the 60's . Well done Labour, another nail in the coffin of Enterprise and Freedom, Who said Marxism was dead.
7. Mike Perry
I simply do not believe that the "Interception of Communications Commissioner" will be of any protection at all.
There is not one historical example of monitoring technology, from kettles for steaming open mail through to telephone tapping and bugging which has not been illegally used by the security services, either for their own self-serving interests or in their role as instruments of state repression. (And yes, I am talking about UK organisations like Special Branch and MI#, not just the KGB and their ilk). In all these examples, there were supposed controls, all of which were simply ignored.
This will be no different, in fact the ease with which it can be automated will probably make it orders of magnitude worse.
8. anonymous
Isn't it about time someone took our government to court over things like this? Like a pitifully ill animal this government should have been put down awhile ago.
9. anonymous
are our emails subject to copyright, if not should they be and how would that effect matters.
How can we guarantee that people unknown to us will not gain commercial advantage. Gosh I know, because the government say they wont
10. anonymous
A few years down the line, I can see one of two things happening.
Either the government will have banned the internet (which is probably quicker and easier than all these new rules they keep forcing on the population), or they will have imposed so many rules and regulations that the internet will have become unusable.
11. anonymous
It seems to me that the people actually making policy are driven not be knowledge but by knee jerk reactions and draconian powers.
One way for people to rise up against it would be to visit "non approved" or dangerous sites, start using the words "Bush" and "assasination" in the same sentence in our phone calls or emails etc.
We are mostly law abiding people who are not listened to when the "powers that be" - mostly civil servants whose main aim in life seems to be to justify their existence and increase their power ignore.
I should look up the definition of democracy again because I may be operating under a misunderstanding.
Flood them with data I say!
12. anonymous
What really annoys me is the way our 'honourable' government got the opposition to agree, having to resort to the tactic of threatening to oppose every bit of legislation from the opposition if they don't tow the line is frankly childish and pathetic.
I'm sure this will set precedent for the ID cards and RFID tags to be implanted in babies :(
13. Brian Sharland
Outrageous...Isn't this another case of Blair asking how high when Bush says jump?
14. anonymous
If the goverment think that monitoring these communications will trap serious criminals and terrorists, they will have to think again.
OK, these measures act as proof of petty crime & fraud, but will do nothing to ensure our society is safer.
If the politicians imagine that terrorists are armed with AOL accounts and contract-based mobile phones, they are deluding themselves.
You can bet your bottom-dollar that determined criminals use encryption, ISP accounts set up with stolen credit cards, and pay-as-you-go mobiles.
All this bill will do is give us law-abiding citizen an un-easy feeling.
15. Ken Hall
Actually the 'real' terrorists never use the ordinary communications that us 'ordinary' mortals do. they are provided with the backdoor stuff that the security services use.
Hence the head of the FBI admitting that in the treasure trove of information from Afghanistan, they could not find 1 sheet of paper that linked Al queda to the 9-11 attacks.
the planes got past the most sophisticated air defenses on the planet to crash into the most sensitive building on the planet with Andrews AIR Force Base 12 miles down the road.
This law will only spy on the law abiding individual.
16. Trevor
What amuses me is that all this data will be meaningless without it being archived correctly. If the government issue the tightest of specifications on the format, storage and transportation of the data to 1,500 different companies, the data will be available in 1,500 different formats and will change every time each company alters it's billing or SLA reporting. From this the government will have a database which resembles the Tower of Babel and about as useful as a mammary gland on a fish. So all of you who are worried about breach of privacy etc... You have no need to worry, we will be well protected by the gross incompetence of our government bureaucracy
17. SmFF
Foreign Web Proxies - here we come.
If it is the only way to not get tracked, many people will be prepared to bounce off other services with less restrictive practices. All people will see is meaningless traffic to those proxies
18. SmFF
Foreign Web Proxies - here we come.
If it is the only way to not get tracked, many people will be prepared to bounce off other services with less restrictive practices. All people will see is meaningless traffic to those proxies
19. anonymous
Secret to success. Use inflammatory words in your email signature: anthrax, terror, attack and the like. This will overload the snoopers. :)
20. Ken Hall
Actually the 'real' terrorists never use the ordinary communications that us 'ordinary' mortals do. they are provided with the backdoor stuff that the security services use.
Hence the head of the FBI admitting that in the treasure trove of information from Afghanistan, they could not find 1 sheet of paper that linked Al queda to the 9-11 attacks.
the planes got past the most sophisticated air defenses on the planet to crash into the most sensitive building on the planet with Andrews AIR Force Base 12 miles down the road.
This law will only spy on the law abiding individual.
21. Ann Onn
It's unnerving when those we've previously dismissed as conspiracy theorists start to be proved right.
Perhaps there really are UFOs after all.
22. Mike Perry
Thank you, Stephen Fry, for highlighting the choice we must make.
I'll go for the first one, i.e. freedom, thank you very much, rather than the second one, i.e. repression.
The point made by someone else is a good one - let's swamp the system by having a signature with phrases like bomb Whitehall and kill Bush. As all this is going ahead anyway, whatever we do or say, then if nothing else those of us in the IT industry might see some trickle-down economic benefits as ever larger servers and databases are needed to process the data.... ;-)
Regds.,
Mike Perry
23. anonymous
Great News businesses, now, every time we get a spam mail, we can pass it on to our MP and say, this company wasted our time and money and we are wish to charge him for our time, please find out who it was so we can charge him.
24. anonymous
We are all suffering under this (to be quite honest) poor government that would rather spend money on an unjust war and technology (+ another unknown Department) that is just yet another invasion of OUR privacy. They need to think about maybe spending more of OUR money on the ailing NHS, the FIRE BRIGADE and POLICE!
25. Pablo
This government is obssessed with gathering information on us.. they wish to reduce us to numbers to control us...
how many terrorist will queue up for an id card...?
how many will sign up with BT openworld....?
would we sit by and let the government monitor the converstaion in all our phone calls ? No, of course not, so then why should they get the content of our emails?
what happened to innocent until proven guilty... why is the whole population viewed with the suspicion to deserve wholsale monitoring....
our government doesn't trust us... and I'm losing my trust in them.
26. Peter Walshe
does this also mean our user friendly Gov't can track down companies ( you know the ones I mean - " cn I speak to the homeowner blah, blah blah..)that have a habit of calling during the best bits of corrie or east enders or worst still whilst eating dinner in order that we can claim compensation for harrisment, distress and wasted food
27. NickH
Hmmm... all they have done is made legal what they were doing all along, so it will stand up in court. Does anyone believe that this, or any other 'democratic' government does not already do this...
28. MARTIN KINGSLEY
It is obvious that real terrorists, criminals, etc., etc., that the Government says it is trying to control will not use the internet in such a way that their comms are open to observation - there must be many ways to circumvent interception...
Surely, what the Government really wants is oversight of the opinions and activities of the ordinary citizen, who cant be bothered to preserve his privacy.
29. anonymous
The police should be able to monitor certain communications, but I think they should have to obtain a court order first, and they should pay for it aswell, if the ISP's have to put in new hardware, we pay for it.
And to be honest, all people will do is encrypt their data. its been 10 minutes since I read the article, and I've already started writing an encrypted chat program and e-mail client. Now the fact that me, someone with nothing to hide, doesn't want their personal information readable by people its not intended for, what will people who do have something to hide do? Encrypt with strong encryption.
Police need powers, but the criminals will just go deeper underground.
30. Emmanuel Goldstein
If you believe in free speech and the right to freely associate and communicate with whomever you like without governement interference and monitoring, then I implore you to spend 300 pounds to buy yourself a second hand PC and router and start running Freenet.
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
31. Joe W
Ahah! Data Encryption Security Act (dees ah) coming to a country near you. Oh wait there's a law like that in the UK _ALREADY_.
So basicly, if I was in, say Somewhereland, and made a voice mail box that had a local number, and used a 'voice scrambler', and randomly waited to send the message to the target, I'd be bypassing this? Or would 6 jackbooted thugs illegally sneak into Somewhereland, and sabotage the server with a bomb?
Think about it...
32. Steve Brown
I am utterly appalled at the fact that this article, emanating from Silicon which I have believed to be a respectable source of information, is the last you have said regarding RIPA.
I was so concerned about the content of this article, both as a user AND a CSP (Communications Service Provider) (albeit on a very small scale) that I wrote to my MP. The MP in question (David Ruffley, MP for Bury St Edmunds) has dug very deep into this on my behalf and written to some senior figures in the government.
I am glad he did. You at silicon have made me look like an total and utter fool. The RIPA bill gives absolutely NONE of the powers your article suggests.
You have not pointed out that before any interception takes place the CSP will receive a formal warrant from the Secretary of State (ie David Blunkett at time of writing) and includes enormous amounts of safeguards to ensure its not overused (as if it would be, he has other things to do as well you know) and is still subject to the judiciary process.
You have failed to mention that the act specifically states that any communications gathered must be suitably filtered to ensure that innocent communications (ie those NOT specifically covered by the warrant) are not presented. Indeed you state the exact opposite, that everyones emails WILL be monitored, and you state the law now requires that.
You have failed to mention that this act basically does nothing sinister except expand the existing legislation to include different media as times have changed and different communications media are nowadays used.
I would urge anyone who is concerned about the imminent privacy invasions and are concerned about Big Brother to visit http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crimpol/crimreduc/regulation/myths/myths.html and read up for themselves. There are links from the myths pages to the actual legislation so if you don't believe the synopsis you can read the actual act for yourself.
33. Tim o'Tei
Well, I agree with everyone, however, Steve Brown pretty much made a point like I was going to.
As much as we all want the rights to free speech and naked people! We have to accept that alot of our data traffic was already being 'logged' and that some of it probably should be, for example IP address usage can be tracked via ISP's.
We have to be realistic about this, I mean I'm a software developer and spend alot of time remotely connecting to client sites to upgrade software, I use the internet at home for gaming, emails and surfing as does my Partner who is a Psychology student so connects to her University Servers from home also.
It would take 1 person days to plough through this amount of data just generated by me and I'm not a heavy user compared to some. No-one is going to sit there ready data streams or physically listening to your phone calls, they will just be trackable.
It will only be looked and processed to find patterns of communication and content when it is needed to. They have basically put in place tools and databases to store the information in a structured manner so that this information can be obtained more easily.
I think we should all stop panic-ing as I'm sure that if this legislation has any detrimental impacts on our private or sensitive data, then Data Protection Court cases will be plentiful, plus the government won't last much longer.
34. anonymous
who will be monitoring the monitors?
35. Mickey Mouse
Its people with something to hide that are scared. Personally I don't care who snoops on me. If a communication was really that sensitive i'd be talking to whoever in a secluded carpark in the middle of nowhere =)
36. Kimi
All Your Data Straight To The US Government:
Often misquoted, in 1905, George Santayana, the Spanish-born, philosopher-author said:
"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (from The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905).
Lest we forget, since at least the early 50s al UK transatlantic traffic (phone calls, fax, email, bank transfers, et al) has been closely monitored by the US via various 3-letter agencies. Today there are huge communications intercept installations and literally thousands of US-paid personnel on UK soil working with GCHQ who continue this tradition.
If you read the fine print of this bill, and examine its contexts and linkages to other anti-terrorist legislation you begin to realise that the UK won't keep all this data to itself. What to do?
37. boney clair
Typical the gov talk about privacy and rights but only when it suits them.
They cannot be and should not be trusted.
38. boney clair
Mickey Mouse is confusing anger at this liberty taking gov exercise for fear,
and his comments are meaning less to debate and have been proved to be so many times
39. boney clair
Steve Browns post
The gov can not be trusted to play by the rules of any act,as they very rarely
do.
also they never made the details of the bill available to the general public apart from listing it on the uk parl website which they never broadly advertise the presence of. Often the process of a bill
is often corrupted in many ways,that is unless the back door is opened or they
slip it in some other way.
The power of this act will be abused.
The reason i am certain of these things
is the fact that the gov has been snooping on us for a long time in conjunction with the USA with the help of a hugh communication data harvesting and analesys and filtering
system called ECHELON.
which they have publically denied,but is
sadly true.