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UK Government Expands Spying Powers
An anonymous submitter provides the best write-up of this story: "Today's front page story of The Guardian covers an attempt by the UK government to expand the number of organisations entitled to demand communications data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). Previously only Customs and Excise, the Inland Revenue, various law enforcement bodies and intelligence agencies were able to demand this information. The list of agencies proposed in the new Draft Statutory Instrument authorises practically everyone from local councils to the Food Standards Agency to demand traffic data. Traffic data includes almost all information attached to a communication apart from the contents of the communication itself. The location of your mobile phone, for example. Who you called on it and who's called you. The URLs you've visited or IP addresses of people who've visited your server... and the list goes on. The two o'clock update has a quote from the PM's spokesman reassuring us how safe we're all going to be once the Department of Work and Pensions can check our phone records. There's also an editorial piece to emphasise that this is a Bad Thing."
This draft is already at quite a late stage: best bet is to fax or mail your MP directly. For the lazy there's a form letter here - and FaxYourMP.com is your friend.
Wake up, you brits: the police state envisioned by Orwell is becoming real. If you look at the loss of liberty in the last fifteen years, and extrapolate forward fifteen more, we'll be RFID tagging the populace.
We're in trouble, people: it really seems that there is a transnational, concerted effort to clamp down on our privacy and rights as far as people will stand for it, using terrorism as an excuse.
In fact, the populace is being systematically denuded of what makes us citizens rather than property of the state. I never used to buy all of that conspiracy theory bullshit, but the more of this stuff I see, the more I wonder what's really going on...
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Remember that as we continue to advance technologically, the ability of society to observe itself will only increase. When we can put sensing equipment in nanites the size of a dust particle, will we?
.67 years older than the upper limit of the codified regulations of interpersonal relations, sub section 3 of section 123, page 197. Please refrain from further fraternization, or suffer the penalty of public sporking.
The cure is not in legislation, it is in revitilization of simple core concepts of succesful society, namely, politeness, respect, and active participation in a shared cultural goal.
Or we can just accept continued branding and enforcement policies that have become popular in the last century. #099-11-1234 you will not go out with that woman, as she is
-GiH
I love sporks, they're the camels of eating utensils.
I am glad that nothing like this is tried in the U.S.A.
No, Vern. They just let him in.
You're a terrorist. You want to see just how much your enemy can find out about you.
Would you rather penetrate MI6? Or the Department of Work and Pensions?
I'm not saying I distrust any podunk agency. I'd much rather not particularly need to. Desperately.
--Dan
Are you sure?
Ummm generally I belive in mind over matter,
The government doesn't mind what you do if you don't matter. However if you do something outrageous, say protest some inane policy or attend a rally etc YOU WILL begin to matter.
In the US, the FBI started watching, taking pictures and keeping a file on the SCA for godsakes! For those who don't know, these are the re-inactment types who dress in armor and play at knighthood.
Why watch them you ask? Apparently because they had a "king" and so might wish to topple the government for a monarchy.
But what you said is true, you will probably never get touched as long as you STAY WITHIN the approved thought/consumption patterns and do nothing to attract attention.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I'm saying that it's good to have checks and balances -- for instance, it's good to have a judge be required to approve a wiretap, so that there's at least SOME oversight. It's bad to have, say, a law enforcement data network with practically no authentication (which exists for some American PDs -- facilitating cops doing "research" well beyond what's called for in their law-enforcement role.)
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
If they opened the data to everyone in the country, this system would be made even better.
This I agree with. If you're going to collect the information, release it. If you don't want it released, don't collect it. You see this all the time in local politics. The small ponds' big fishees pitch a fit if their publicly funded cell phone records are released. Hey, I paid for it. Let me see what you're doing.
Best Windows Freeware
Even though all these laws are being put in place to make the free world less free. The real problem is that the majority of Citizans are not doing anything about it. A lot of people have seem to forgotten that in order to keep a free society they must be involved in what is going on. If these things are bothiner you Write to parlement or your congressman for americans. Complaining about it dosent do much you must be more active when it is time to vote you get the politicians views on the issues that effect you and vote. There is a fine line between protecting you life and property and protecting your liberity.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Survivors of the Paddington rail disaster have recently discovered that the Department of Transport was digging into their private life. The intent was to find out their political affilitations and use these to discredit them. The reason? They were critical of a government minister, the legendarily poor Steven Byers.
In other words, being critical of government policy was enough to start an investigation into their private lives. This is causing a small scandal here at present, a scandal which really should be much larger and probably only isn't because we're so used to such poor standards from our politicians.
Cheers,
Ian
It was fought and lost.
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
There is frankly little we can do. This is the direct result of democracy - the uninformed electing the uncaring. The labour government has an enormous majority within the house of commons, not because it is good or popular but simply because it's the better of two, frankly awful, choices.
The last election had almost 50% of the electorate not voting - it's not apathy, it's disgust for both major parties on the part of the educated and informed. We've been subjected to ridiculous, pathetic, bite-size policies that can make the evening news; attempts to score cheap points over rivals, and general contempt from those supposed to represent us. Those who lap this travesty up (and there are many) are sufficient to propogate the unfortunate status quo.
I have the chance to work in the USA in the near future - I'm going to jump with both feet. You may have the (spit!) DMCA et al, but the prospect of remaining in the police-state-once-called-the-UK turns my stomach.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I've posted this already to kuro5hin, but it can't hurt to repeat my comments to a possibly wider audience. A few sample letters are also here.
If you're like me, you'll find writing to your MP about matters like this very rewarding. Saying that, I neglected to write or fax when the RIP bill first came up, despite my intentions to do so.
I last wrote (dead tree, rather than fax) to my MP at the time regarding Higher Education funding (at the request of my old University), and got a nice reply back saying he'd deal with it in due course. Subsequently, I received a pp'd letter saying he'd contacted the appropriate people.
Ok, it changed nothing - higher education is still poorly funded - but I felt I'd done 'my bit'. Multiply that out, and it could have an effect. Although with the almost dictatorial goverment system we have, it's hard to imagine enough Labour MP's rebelling against a 3-line whip to reject the amendment.
It makes a lot more sense to write something you have thought about, rather than copy/pasting somebody else's letter. If the same MP (well, secretary) receives a few similair messages through the same format (ie. fax), they IMNSHO are (even though they shouldn't) more likely to discount your views.
Different letters, especially if they are dead-tree compliant (come on, how many tech savy MP's have you ever seen or heard from?) go so much further.
So do it, people. This extension of power is extreme, and deserves a letter writing campaign and far more attention.
So:
# Write to your MP. It'll only take a few minutes to write it, print it, sign it, and send it.
# Write again after a few weeks if you've not heard back.
# Forward the link to this story (when it hits the front page or sections) to your friends.
# Mention it to friends at the pub. It's ridiculous, and i'd be startled if anybody - even the non-techies in your circle of friends - agree it makes sense for these organisations to have this amount of power.
# Check that newspapers are giving this coverage.
# Write letters to newspapers on the subject, expressing your feelings.
None of this takes a huge amount of time. It's worth it, and you'll feel a lot better for doing it.
And if anything, it might start to pursuade the government and media that techy's can actual get themselves organised into a politicial pressure
group.
Maybe. Perhaps.
Mmmmm.
Well, one step at a time, then, eh?
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
RIPA, the A must refer to civil rights associtations :)
I stole this Sig
This is not offtopic, it's a historical perspective on this subject, from the U.S. viewpoint. Many Slashdot readers are too young to remember Nixon, so here's a reminder of why so many Americans worry about giving government police and spy agencies too much unregulated power.
After Nixon's resignation, the Church Committee, named after its chairman, Senator Frank Church of Idaho, conducted a wide-ranging investigation of US intelligence agencies. In its final report, issued in April 1976, the committee concluded: "Domestic intelligence activity has threatened and undermined the Constitutional rights of Americans to free speech, association and privacy. It has done so primarily because the Constitutional system for checking abuse of power has not been applied."
The committee said the abuses by the intelligence apparatus mirrored the growth of excessive executive power and excessive secrecy, and that in the name of "national security" intelligence officers and their senior officials blatantly disregarded the law and the civil liberties of their targets. (Sound familiar, anyone?)
The Church Committee revealed the enormous scope of the operations against anti-war demonstrators, civil rights activists and left-wing political parties. This included the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (Cointelpro), which had the stated goal "to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" left-wing opponents of government policy. FBI headquarters alone developed over 500,000 domestic intelligence files on US citizens.
In addition the committee found:
* At least 26,000 individuals were at one point catalogued on an FBI list of persons to be rounded up in the event of a "national emergency."
* Nearly a quarter of a million first class letters were opened and photographed in the US by the CIA between 1953 and 1973, producing a CIA computerized index of nearly 1.5 million names.
* Separate files were created on approximately 7,200 Americans and over 100 domestic groups in the course of the CIA's Operation CHAOS (1967-1973), aimed at crushing the student anti-war movement.
* Millions of private telegrams sent from, to, or through the US were obtained by the National Security Agency from 1947 to 1975 under a secret arrangement with three US telegraph companies. (Replaced now by Eschalon)
* An estimated 100,000 Americans were the subjects of United States Army intelligence files created between the mid-1960s and 1971.
* Intelligence files on more than 11,000 individuals and groups were created by the Internal Revenue Service between 1969 and 1973 and tax investigations were started on the basis of political rather than tax criteria.
The Senate committee also found that these agencies sent anonymous letters attacking the political beliefs of targets in order to induce their employers to fire them. Similar letters were sent to spouses in an effort to destroy marriages. The committee also documented criminal break-ins, the theft of membership lists and misinformation campaigns aimed at provoking violent attacks against targeted individuals.
One of the most infamous operations uncovered by the Church Committee was the FBI's campaign to "neutralize" civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. This included an extensive surveillance program to obtain information about the "private activities of King and his advisers" to use in order to "completely discredit" them. The FBI mailed King a tape recording made from microphones hidden in hotel rooms. As one agent testified, this was an attempt to destroy King's marriage. The tape was accompanied by a note suggesting that the recording would be released to the public unless King committed suicide.
The FBI's Cointelpro operations against the Black Panthers involved the killing of several leaders, including Fred Hampton, by the Chicago police, as well as the frame-up and imprisonment of scores of others.
Extending this list by this much does more than greatly increase the number of agencies allowed access to personal information--it greatly increases the number of people who might have access to it, and to abuse it. Especially scary is the power on the local level.
Need I even mention that many of these agencies have no personnel with the training to gather information, much less interpret it accurately. How long before the good old US follows suit? Or have they already granted these powers to every branch of government?
Can I bum a sig?
Please be careful using form letters. If an MP gets too many identical letters/faxes, it'll reduce the impact they have.
Take points from the form letters that have been posted here and elsewhere, by all means, but don't just copy/paste it!
A little bit of thought and attention to the points that matter most to you will significantly increase the impact it will have on the recipient.
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
You miss the point. The legislation requires that the information be kept for 7 years.
This is not a case of "if you keep it, we'll have the right to make you give us a copy of it". This is the UK government saying "you will keep this data, and surrender it on demand, and all at your own expense".
I doubt that the legislation will apply to "hobbyist" servers, but you can bet that there will be stiff financial and/or criminal penalties for "real" ISPs that refuse to implement the necessary data retention procedures.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
A little on the workings of the UK Parliment.
A Statuary Order, does not need to be debated to become law, it just "neads to be layn befor the House for seven days".
What this gobadygook actual means is, as long as its in the Commons Libary for a week and nobody chalanges it it will become law.
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
> was simply the Supreme court confirming what is clearly written in the Constitution -- that a state judiciary (SCOFLA in this case) may not step in and overturn the results of a federal election.
Care to point out where in the constitution that is said?
The issue is (was) that the Florida legislature exercised its constitutional right to legislate how presidential electors would be appointed in Florida. However, under Florida's constitution the Florida supreme court has the final judicial word on cases of Florida law. Plaintifs claimed that Florida law was not being followed and the case was escalated all the way up to the FSC -- exactly as it should be under the Florida constitution.
The SCOTUS ruling was nothing but a bunch of special pleading to ensure that their man got the job. The majority abandoned their long-held principles on this case, and then tried to cover their asses by saying "this ruling shall not be a precedent for the future".
But if it was the correct ruling, why shouldn't it be a precedent?
BTW, Bush-vs-Gore isn't the issue. It's the precedent -- legally binding or not -- that scares the hell out of me. Now all of America's political machines know that if they can rig an election and then run out the clock on the challenges, the rigged results will stand -- if they have friends in the Supreme Court.
And of course, it might not be the Republicans that 'win' next time. The Democrats have big scary political machines in other states, and will probably 0wn the SCOTUS someday too. I won't cheer a SC that hands an election to the Democrats, either.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> He was legally elected. The only people who doubt that are those who didn't know how to punch a damned hole into a piece of paper, or how to follow an arrow.
Let's not forget overseas military votes that were counted even though they missed the legal deadline.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's very important that everyone in the UK who is concerned about this actually do something about it by writing to their MP. When the RIP was going through I'd an exchange of letters with my MP where I registered my concern. In fairness, my comments probably had little effect but I was informed of amemdments and at least there's one more piece of paper expressing concern in the files.
It's important to note that only comments in writing will be noticed. That's the way the system works. Also, by writing to your MP you're going to get attention - it's part of their office to reply - even sending out form letters creates notice. The easy way for us to make comments is by faxing your MP.
Go and do it now.
A simple rule of thumb: Citizens have rights, subjects have privileges. We believe our rights are unalienable -- they come from God. Subjects' privileges are granted by the crown and taken away by the crown as it sees fit.
We're almost there. We just need to open things up a tiny bit more. There are virtually no meaningful restrictions left, so why not go the whole hog. We just need to take it a *tiny* bit further. When I can get a list of all the people Cherie Blair has been in conact with over the last week, when I can review which websites Jack Straw's children have been looking at, then I'll feel like we're on a level playing field. I'm willing to bet that politicians have got more to hide than I do, for the simple reason that nobody really cares what I do.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
I hate to break it to you, but things aren't much better here in the USA. The electorate is grossly uninformed, the elected aren't too much better informed, the media aren't talking about the issues, election turnout hovers about 60%, and instead of two parties, we have the Republicans and the Republican-Wannabes (otherwise known as the Democrats). Oh yeah, we have the Green and Reform parties, too, but those guys are just making noise at this stage.
On the other hand, there's still a lot that America has to offer. The food, and the variety of food, is excellent. The cost of living is relatively low while the salaries are relatively high. The music is fantastic once you turn off the damn radio. Our graduate schools, especially in technology, are second to none. Girls will dig your Brit accent. And you can't beat the scenery.
The only real pain in the ass, as far as you're concerned, is going to be learning to drive on the right-hand side of the road, and getting used to American football. The gun laws may be a bit of a shock, too, but they're a thing of beauty once you get used to them.
Finding God in a Dog
And you guys thought thatthe DCMA was bad!!
Pity us poor Brits - not only do we have to put up with Star Trek months after you guys see it, we also get duff laws through that have been bounced once and this time they are even more duff.
:-)
Good troll, interesting enough to answer:
It does apply to me if my immediate family or acquaintances work for a government agency. Imagine your girlfriends father works there, and he concludes from your visits to goatse that you must be some anally fixated freak. That does not enhance your relationship. The problem is, you don't get a chance to explain the misunderstanding, because he will have made up his mind about you already, and will not ask you: "hey, I noticed you visited this website, care to elaborate?"
Don't think this is far-fetched: a lot of parents that work for the police/justice/whatever look up everything they can about potential new in-laws.
Same thing when looking for a new job: They will check you out, and if they can find your internet habits this way, they will. And again, you probably won't have a chance to explain the harmlessness of your actions.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
here.
In my ranting to various friends on various mailing lists, one chap (Martin R) suggested the following:
You could also try calling the labour party on 08705 900200 (UK Number, so +44 8705 900200 from outside the UK)
choose option 3 to be put through to a Goverment Information Adviser. A report of the calls they receive is sent out to Number 10.
They will tell you it is for law enforcement purposes (so why aren't the police doing it), but don't know very much about it. Quoting directly from the order will fox them thoroughly.
They have already received a number of calls.
There is also an option to contact Labour Party Head Office, although they don't seem to be answering right now.
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
Trains in America? You have never been to the US, have you? I have been all over the US my whole life, NEVER TOOK A TRAIN.
That is the most Brit-centric comment I have ever heard. Honestly, the US railway system (AmTrack) has really precious little to do with the government other than grabbing riding priveledges off of private rail systems.
Oh, and the difference between Bush and Moussolini, and your little ridiculous, unfounded, General Anti-American Commie Nutter Beliefs(TM), is that Bush is trying to save his people instead of killing them outright in an angry, syphillitic haze.
I highly, highly doubt that George Bush will do things so horrible like Moussolini that he will end up strung up in front of his parliament so that the populace will definitely know he is dead. Quite the contrary, he'll probably get a few statues out of it, and a library. Maybe a monument.
That was because he will be remembered as one who tried to stop the death of others (and especially his citizens), instead of encouraging it.
SO, I would just like to say this on behalf of all the people that live in countries with no real freedoms...
Go screw yourself and your left wing, centralized governments that make all of the decisions for me and take all of my earnings to do it.
I mean it. Screw you and your ridiculous Utopia. There is a reason why they call it Utopia.
BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXSIST.
Your only kidding yourself. I've been framed, and misunderstood enough times that I no longer trust anyone with athority. And those incidences were before I reached 4th grade.
I was not fighting in first grade. I got wrote up for it anyway because someone in power decided that what I was doing just could have been fighting at a first glance, and so I was wrote up. I've not forgotten that incident. I have been innocent and just punished for it.
There are others, but that one stands out in my mind, and is proff byond the shadow of a doupt that goverment is out to get you.
Wow. Look how far we've come since the Magna Carta.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Within hours of the news story appearing, our council leader had asked the council's legal officer to find out if there was any way that the council could refuse to accept these powers.
(It was so obvious that we didn't want these powers that the council leader issued these instructions before consulting his fellow councillors, as it seemed inconceivable that any of us would take a different view.)
One word: Echelon.
This means that the Brits are more, um... willing to electronically spy, and if I remember right, Echelon works by the UK spying on us and vice versa. You can bet that whatever they are looking at, much time is spent spying on US domestic affairs.
-twb
So how about a reciprocal notification requirement: Any agency that monitors your traffic is required to notify you of what and how they monitored within 30 days of having done so ? If it would jeopardize an ongoing criminal investigation, then the agency could petition a judge for extentions based on evidence collected. Otherwise, pfft! Once charges are filed, of course, they are required to disclose all evidence.
This notification requirement should have a noticable chilling effect on snoops who work in secrecy and dread being called upon to justify their snooping. They might be tempted skip notifications, but suitable penalties could be levied (disqualification of evidence, wiretap). Auditing would be necessary.
The minister didn't ask anything. An official did. A public servant.
Labour has the right to ask what it wishes. The Department of Transport should adhere to strict neutrality.
Incidently, let's suppose one of the survivers had been the leader of the Green party. Would their comments and questions be any less valid for that fact? Why not deal with the questions rather than the personalities?
Cheers,
Ian
...is to stop demanding them.
Decide you'd rather be safe than free, or at least don't complain when others make that decision for you. Submit voluntarily to a random search because it makes the streets safer. Get frisked at the door. Carry a national ID. Get strip-searched before you get on the plane. Piss in the test cup and interoffice mail it to your boss. Don't write your congressman because we all know it doesn't make any difference. Stop reading the newspaper because it's so depressing. Don't vote. Use the supermarket's "discount card" so they can track everything you eat. Stop at the exit to the store when the employee tells you to and show them your receipt so they can be sure you're not stealing. Smile at the camera. Accept the software license that makes it illegal to use the program in ways the software company doesn't like. Receive information but don't create any. Watch TV because books are too thought-intensive. If you do read, have the FBI check your library's records to make sure nobody's checking out too many flagged books. Accept what you're told. Let the government gut the fifth amendment because it makes it too hard to get the bad guys. Let the FBI go back to spying on political organizations & religious groups again because "everything's changed." Let your bank share your personal data with anyone it wants because you're too busy to bother opting out. Mandate location chips in your cell phones so anyone who pays the phone company or gets a court order can know where you are 24/7. Fill out this survey for a chance at big prizes. Put a bio-locator chip in your kid's arm. Don't talk to strangers, they may think differently than you. Go from place to place in a metal box that prevents you from meeting or talking to anyone new or weird. Perpetuate the status quo. Pay more attention to how much money is in your pocket and how safe your investments are than how free you are, how creative you can be, and what the shape of the future is. Get yours - fuck the next guy.
Excuse the drama, but I don't know how else to express the feelings building up in me over the way the US is going. And I'm talking about the past 5-10 years, not just since September. If what our Declaration of Independence referred to as "certain inalienable rights" are no more than a greasy coin we can trade for a modicum of safety, 10% off our groceries, or a chance at winning a speedboat, what are they worth? Does a nation of people that would trade such liberty for these things deserve it? I simply no longer understand a large number of my fellow Americans who seem to think the above is basically OK. More than depressing, it's dangerous, and bodes ill for the long-term future of the nation.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Yes, our goverment does want the power to read our e-mails. And to know who and when we called someone on the phone...
But can we name a country where this already takes place? Heres a hint, 'Carnivore'.
I guess the upside of this is that it is out in the public a law. You can overturn a law. You can demonstrate a law to be unworkable. You can show a law to be in conflict with other laws.
Its a lot better than 'policy' and 'guidelines'.
If I run my own web server on my home ADSL line do I have to keep the logs or does it only apply to ISPs? If it does apply, then it seems to be time to develop a ficticious log generating program.
How is outgoing mail monitored? If I send my email via my ISPs mail server then I can see that they have a log. What if I send it direct? It doesn't seem to go through a proxy.
Likewise with HTML. Since I don't go out through a proxy presumably my ISP has to monitor all the packets to get a list of sites I have visited.
I guess I could go back to sending more real letters (these powers don't seem to apply to snail mail and presumably no-one monitors what I put in the post box). Perhaps its time to buy a bulk supply of disc mailers.
Anyone working on a scheme to get around it entirely? E.g. some scheme to send emails via FreeNet?
Bottom Line: Politicians don't care and Joe Public thinks we are all terrorists anyway. However, we are much more intelligent than them so we might as well use our brains to work on a technical solution.
An extraordinary degree of opposition from all parts of the political spectrum succeeded in getting the worst aspects of that accursed Bill amended, though the resulting Act that passed into law is still highly objectionable. Crucially, some aspects of the way the RIP Act would actually work in detail were left unspecified in the legislation, to be clarified as regulations to be drawn up later by - yep, you've guessed it - the Home Office. This is fairly standard practice in the UK, but in this particular case one has to conclude that the parliamentarians who were trying to pull the teeth of the monster ended up by giving it a big yet kiss.
Well, now we have the detailed clarification from the Home Office of who should be allowed to snoop on our communications. A grab-bag of everyone from government departments with responsibility for sensitive areas like nuclear power to hundreds of thousands of minor civil servants and elected officials up and down the country, presented to Parliament in a form that doesn't even need further legislation to come into force - it's more in the nature of an administrative order. I will nevertheless admit that I'm a little surprised at how over the top this list of authorised organisations is. The Post Office is authorised to snoop on electronic communications? Any local authority (ie local town or district council)? Does the Home Office perhaps believe that snooping on electronic communications is going to help deliver letters on time, or keep the sidewalks free from dog-poop? More likely you'll end up with Councilor Bigbucks-the-Builder, head of the local building & planning department, trawling for information about the pesky folks who are orchestrating a campaign against selling off the school playing-field for a multi-story office development.
FWIW, my guess is that the more extreme entries in the wish-list are sacrificial and that the Home Office will give them up if pushed - though it will do this with the same bloody-mindedness and grudging bad grace that it displayed throughout the discussion on the original RIP Act which this 'clarifies' - so that some other entries which would otherwise be contentions, for example the government Department of the Environment - will slip through unopposed. Cynical, but unfortunately standard practice. I'd guess that other aims of such an extensive set of authorised organisations are to make the task of oversight as difficult as possible, and to maximise the uncertainty about whether a particular request for traffic information to an ISP can legitimately be resisted.
Brits: write to your MPs - politely but firmly. Look at the list of bodies that the Home Office wants to authorise to snoop - the wish-list is up on the government's web site here. Ask your MP to consider what range of offenses and security concerns it is reasonable to use traffic analysis and access information to investigate, and what organisations are going to be directly involved in such investigations.
(Sigh) It took the BSE and foot'n'mouth debacles before the UK government finally reluctantly accepted that the old Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries & Food had become nothing more than an in-house lobbey for the agribusiness, and could no longer be trusted with supervising food safety. I shudder to think how long it will be before it is accepted that justice and supervision of law enforcement are now too important to be left to the Home Office.
The intent was to find out their political affilitations and use these to discredit them.
Except the attacks where clearly political motivated, I cannot see how a prospective parliamentary candidate can be viewed other than inherently biased. The add the fact that the Tories are responsible for the poor state of the railways because of their ill conceived meddling.
In other words, being critical of government policy was enough to start an investigation into their private lives.
This is a misnomer, there are at least two degrees of separation, from the Civil Servants that can legally access this data, via the executive, to the party workers. As the son of a Civil Servant, I can assure you they take there independence extremely seriously.
And if one of those few thousand was you wife/child/mother/father ? Would you still be so idealistic?
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
But in this case they were bypassed. That's my point - people who could legally ask for this information were being instructed to ask for it by someone who could not have got it themselves.
As the son of a Civil Servant, I can assure you they take there independence extremely seriously. Oh, I know plenty of civil servants and have done for years. Not a smear on the service. It is a direct criticism of the ridiculous 'political advisor' system, whereby someone who's entire job is explicitly political is able to order those who are supposed to be neutral to do their bidding.
To come on to your other point:
Except the attacks where clearly political motivated, I cannot see how a prospective parliamentary candidate can be viewed other than inherently biased.
To be alive is to be political. Everyone has a political viewpoint - you, me, the candidate...everyone. But does this make the questions less valid?
Then add the fact that the Tories are responsible for the poor state of the railways because of their ill conceived meddling.
Cheers,
Ian
I see that, according to NTK, the Parliamentary vote has been put back a week to Monday 24th, June. Round one to the activists who faxed/wrote/called, but keep those faxes rolling!!!!
Stand report has more detail.
Might be worth faxing again to advise your MP of the new date?
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.