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By Ian Jones, 26 May 2000 00:05

COMMENT 'Snooping Bill slammed by silicon.com viewers'; 'Why the wire-tap Bill mustn't rest in peace'; 'Internet Snooping Bill fails human rights audit'. These are all genuine headlines from silicon.com news stories. So what happened when the RIP Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords this week? Basically nothing. The Bill continued to navigate the seas of UK democracy as smoothly as ever. Does that mean the controversy surrounding the 'Snooping Bill', or to give it its proper name, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill, is merely hype? To answer that, let's look at the predicted effects of the Bill. First, ISPs will collectively have to cough up something in the region of £30m to implement the legislation. True, the government will share some of that cost, but every ISP will still face significant charges to install and manage software to monitor traffic passing across their networks. That cost will be passed on to the business customer as well as the individual consumer, hampering Europe's most forward-thinking Net access market. Until now, Britain has led the way in 'subscription-free' and 'free call' services. With such a large legislative cost, expect to see that development curtailed. The cost could also force upstart ISPs out of business, causing premature consolidation around the big players. Pretty dramatic stuff, but that's not all. The law would clear the way for the police to apply a 'guilty until proven innocent' principle to whoever falls under suspicion. For example, if you receive an encrypted and incriminating email, the onus would be on you to prove you do not have a key to decrypt that mail - a far from ideal situation that has already angered civil rights campaigners. But does that leave us to conclude the Lords have no idea of the significance of this Bill? Not entirely. This week merely set the scene for future discussions. The next phase comes on 12 June. Then the Bill will be debated line-by-line before a Whole House Committee. All the arguments will be heard and suggested amendments discussed. This phase will be crucial. If those Lords present don't fully grasp the implications of this technical subject, then everything written here will come true. So we, as a campaigning publication, will be making sure the Lords really do understand what they are voting on. We'll be contacting peers directly and raising awareness in the wider media. silicon.com believes this Bill should not go through.