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

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.