Debate Postponed On UK RIP Act Amendment

Harry Morgan writes: " The UK Government has postponed debate on, The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data: Additional Public Authorities) Order 2002 which is their attempt to expand the number of organisations entitled to demand communications data under the original RIP act, until Tuesday 18th June. For anyone who feels strongly about this, now is the time to do something about it. You can fax your Member of Parliament from stand.org.uk a site which gives comprehensive information about the order and the original act. "

Comments

Fax MP

[tomasdore]

Also http://www.faxyourmp.com/, which does what it says on the box.

It gets worse!

[Dr_Cheeks]

Oh Lord! The original act was bad enough, but now they want to give The Post Office!!!! (among others) access to traffic data w/o a warrant or anything!

Please, every UK resident who values their privacy use the form to fax your MP, or better yet write a letter (I know; archaic, but it might just get the attention of a technophobe MP or two in a way that a fax wouldn't).

wake up call...

[OzPhIsH]

Finally, a wake up call to the many Europeons that visit slashdot. I've seen lots of you from across the Atlantic poke fun of and jest at some of the rediculous measures being passed in the US, but unfortunatly, as we do, other countries tend to follow. So, PLEASE, PLEASE, if you're from the UK, don't just sit on your ass as many Americans have done. Write your representives! Express your concerns. Let them know how you feel about your privacy rights. Does anyone know of any way people outside the UK can help out? Im sick of these kind of policies happening in the world as of late. There has got to be a way where we can stand up not just as citizens against our own countries policies, but as an international community againt all injustices to civil rights.

Journalists and that tricky third election term

[charlie]

Just why are they doing this?

Here's a nasty theory: if the amendment, as drafted, is passed, it will make life virtually impossible for investigative journalists. If you want to dig into malfeasance or corruption in an NHS trust, local parish council, or just about any government department, under the revised RIPA terms even a low-level administrator can order your phone tapped, your email monitored, and generally track all your incoming information. Which undermines the ability of journalists to protect their sources.

In addition to phone and internet taps, the RIP Act covers private CCTV footage (there are over two million private CCTV cameras in the UK). This could potentially allow affected agencies to visually monitor journalists on their way to appointments with sources -- or to demand tape of meetings in order to identify sources. Basically, if this measure passes, anonymous whistle-blowing will become seriously difficult.

The last Conservative administration encountered a deluge of corruption scandals in their fourth election term; these were partly a result of genuine corruption, but also partially the consequence of the British press scenting blood in the water and homing in on every rumour. This measure sounds to me like New Labour, in conjunction with the Home Office, battening down the hatches and tightening the screws in order to reduce leaks.

How long until it gets abused..?

[Dynamoo]

How long until it gets abused? Well, probably about 5 seconds in my opinion. Look, I have to real objection to anti-terrorist or anti-organised-crime bodies such as MI5, MI6 or Special Branch having this sort of access - Echelon has been doing this for a while anyway, it's just a logical extension of those powers for intelligence services.

HOWEVER.. for everyone else it's a snooper's charter. For example, just why does the local council need access to my traffic records? Do I have something to hide from them.. well YES as an active participant in local democracy I sometimes find myself at odds with people in power. Do I want them (for instance) to collect the email addresses of people I correspond with and build up a list of everybody who's a member of the same political party as I am? Nope - that information is highly confidential. Do I want them to probe the URLs I'm looking at when I'm maintaining political websites or sites that are critical of the administration? Nope - remember, sometimes the password is either encoded into the URL, or the raw URL itself can often bypass authentication.

That's just an example of legitimate political activity that will potentially come under scrutiny by corrupt people in local government.. and believe me, there are plenty of those about.

To an extent, I trust MI5 and other bodies because I'm not a terrorist or drug smuggler, but do I trust all those other bodies that will be able to snoop on me? Absolutely not.. this WILL be abused, but don't count on the perpatrators ever being brough to justice.

I might just change by name to Winston Smith and get it over with.

Some suggestions for letters/faxes

[sjmurdoch]

Unlike the article states, the debate on the RIPA ammendment has been delayed from Tuesday 18th June until Monday 24th June (see Stand.org.uk). This now leaves you time to fax, or better still, write to your MP.

Here are some ideas and examples of letters that you could use to base the letter/faxes to your MP. However please, please do not just copy and paste significant portions of the letter into your one. This does more harm than good since then the MPs will just ignore both of them and think that you don't care about the issue enought to write your own letter.

• Kuro5hin.org article
• More examples from Kuro5hin
• The letter I sent to my MP
• Stand.org.uk
• Foundation for Information Policy Research
• The previous Slashdot article