UK Passes Surveillance Law For ISPs

NoiseLesion writes "The Standard has reports on a new bill granting surveillance privileges to a new arm of MI5. Carnivore looks tame compared to this."

Comments

Re:Please Learn to Use Encryption

[MoOsEb0y]

The problem with this, however, is the fact that if you encrypt your communications as you suggest, you face a 2 year jail sentence for refusal of giving them the keys. Furthermore, you can't tell ANYONE that you have given them the keys (if you decide against a 2 year sentence). If you do, you face a 5 year jail sentence. This kind of crap literally SCARES me. If the US ever thinks of pulling that, I'm moving to sealand to work at Data Haven.

Re:Stability?

[crulx]

booker said: To which I'd say... most Westerners take a free nation for granted. You grossly underestimate the value of this privilege. Imagine living in Afghanistan. Or Sierra Leone. Or even Fiji.

Richard Stevens said: It's really easy to say that when you've got a full belly and a roof over your head for the foreseeable future, isn't it?

There is this thing in logic called an Ad Hominem fallacy. You just used it. You didn't mention anything about why you thought that the author's premise that Westerns feel that freedom is taken for granted by most Westerner's, including yourself. Instead, you claimed that it was easy to say this because of certain conditions about booker's life. I imagine you wanted to tie that into your earlier point about stability, but instead you went arwy and made a logical fault. Please try to avoid these sorts of errors, or people will start to think you are a troll as that tatic is often used by them. If people think you are a troll, they will stop listening to you (that is the internet standard way of dealing with them). If your point is to communicate on /. , then this will be counter to your goals and thus unbenificial to you.

And who are you to judge the importance of the stability of the state? What if the state is engaged in wrongdoing? Should we preserve stability at all costs? Seems like a strange end to strive for... Sigh. You really have no concept of the real world, do you? The state had better be engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing before you start acting up, because chances are you'd make matters much worse in the process of trying to "improve" things.

Again, an Ad Hominem. What does his haveing "no concept of the real world" have to do with his feelign that freedom is more important than stability? I can think of a few reasons, but you make no clear arguments. Do you mean to tie it in with your next point about the state needing to "be engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing ..."? Is that what you claim "real world" knowledge to be? I'm sure you can see that many people would disagree. If you want to make any points, you need to elaborate.

And look at your logic in the second line. If you start "acting up" before the state is "engaged in a damn good deal of wrongdoing..." then you will end up making "matters much worse".

This seems to be the fundimental premise of your argument. Thus the rest of your argument suffers from a falicy know as petitio principii, Begging the question. Your argument looks like this..
1) The government is not "engaged in a damn good deal of wrondoing. (supposedly proved by the fact that things are stable and not every person in the nation is complaining)
2) If you act up and the government is not doing wrong then you will make matters much "worse in the process of trying to "improve" things. "
3) You do not want to make matters worse (definition of worse for most rational people)
Therefore, do not act up. (I think that conclusion can safely be implied by your comments. Especially comments below about people who have the power to make life miserable for everyone)
You have not shown 1 to be the case. Nor have you explained why 2 is correct. So your conclusion has not been shown. Please explain the following.

1. Why is invasion of not a "damn good deal of wrongdoing"?
2. What is a good deal of wrongdoing?
3. What is the definition of "acting up"?
4. Why is premise 2 correct? Why is acting up only good for for large amounts of wrongness and not small amounts.

You need to prove your premises.

Often, though, "stability" is a placated populace, happily listening to Britney Spears and munching on Cheetos, and threats to that notion of "stability" are dealt with severely. That sort of stability generates the big bucks.

That's all what you've chosen to do with the fact that you're rich and content enough to not have to worry about whether rebel (or government) militia leaders are going to come to your house and steal all your food (at best).

This is a non sequitur. How does this follow from his statements above?

People in the Western world (especially the US) are generally well-off enough that freedom can coexist with stability. They don't want to lose what they have. However, when you start getting desperate elements in the population (who have the power to make life miserable for everyone), the story changes.

Both you and the poster make several arguments with the argumentum ad numerum fallacy. Just because most people are complacent with stability, does not justify your arugment that stability is more important than "not acting up". booker makes some of the same arugments.

Please, if you want to prove your point, choose a logical standpoint to go from. Your arguments will sound more professional and will less likely get you labled as a troll. (And there is somethign I hope we can both agree upon.) ---
crulx
crulx@iaxs.net

My goodness, yes!

[Booker]

I mean, everyone knows that whenever a government practices surveillance on its citizens, it's only if that citizen is truly a dangerous criminal. A quick scan of history reveals that, right off!

All those communists in the McCarthy era got what was coming to them.

And those damn Japanese-Americans during WWII.

Arlo Guthrie most certainly deserved to have his life on file at the FBI. As did Pete Seeger. Damned agitators...

Make a stand...

[gi_wrighty]

I've read through the posts and no-one has mentioned http://www.stand.org.uk. At their site you can webfax your local MP and they have a good source of information about the effects of the bill.

Another useful site is http://www.fipr.org/rip/RIPcountermeas ures.htm . No explainations required.

wrighty.

(Is it me or does the lameness filter add in spaces to long strings?)

Hasn't passed yet...

[SamHill]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill hasn't passed yet.

What happened is that the House of Commons discussed and accepted the amendments to the bill made by the House of Lords. No vote to accept or reject overall passage of the bill was made.

You can read the discussions for yourself.

For up-to-date tracking of the bill's progress, see the Home Office's RIP page.

UK's E-mail Scan Is Avoidable

[qbasicprogrammer]

Since Britain passed its Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill, security experts have examined the technology behind the e-mail snooping that is allowed in the law. Allegedly, the technology is extremely easy for savvy computer users to avoid (i.e. the sort of people that the government hopes to catch in illegal acts). If the cybercriminals can bypass the tap with ease, then whose e-mail gets scanned? Answer: ordinary people. That's why a number of experts are explaining to citizens what steps are necessary to remain invisible to the RIP's black boxes.

Full story at ZDNet or BBC.

Rumour Control on the RIP Act

[AndrewD]

OK, here's the basics:

Here, we have the Bill itself as it emerged from its report to face it's third reading (last stage in parliament before Royal Assent and passage onto the statute book: it comes into force on a date to be fixed thereafter)

Thi s is the complete list of amendments, and you'll notice that Lord Bassam and chums seem to be out with their castrating knives and good on 'em, ain't it handy to have legislators who aren't going to have to face re-election.

This schweinerei is the really offensive part.

Things you ought to know about this Bill:

1. It's already been beaten back once. The really offensive stuff started out in the Electronic Communications Bill (now the Act, minus all the nasty parts and as such totally useless and unlikely ever to be brought into force)
2. On and from 2nd October 2000, when the Human Rights Act 1998 comes into force, it will be more or less impossible to get convictions under clause 53 (it may not retain that section number in the Act-as-it-passes) since the threat of a penalty for non-disclosure amounts to a violation of the privilege against self-incrimination. This particular legal device - questioning under compulsion, a rather genteel and bloodless form of torture - resulted in the defendants in l'affaire Guinness getting judgments in their favour in the EHCR. Because compelled answers to a (non-criminal) DTI inquiry were used as evidence in their eventual (criminal) trial, they were found to have had their human rights violated.
3. The Encryption stuff isn't the big deal. It's the government's automatic right to install whatever variant of the carnivore system they want into any ISP, telecom provider, whatever so that they can monitor whenever they like without prior judicial restraint. The warrants are to be signed by the Secretary of State. And how much scrutiny is he going to give them?
4. There's a Commission going to be appointed to hear complaints. Sure, right. Fact fans, listen carefully: this is what they did last time around, when they passed the old Interception of Telecommunications Act fifteen years ago. In those fifteen years, the Commissioner has heard four (4) complaints. And rejected all of them. Can you say "dead letter?"

I could, and at very small provocation will, go on.