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UK ISPs Refuse to Monitor Users
An anonymous reader writes "The internet industry has refused to sign up to plans to give law enforcement and intelligence agencies access to the records of British web and email users, throwing David Blunkett's post-September 11 data surveillance regime into fresh disarray.
In the latest of a long line of setbacks for the home secretary's data retention campaign, the Guardian has learned that internet service providers have told the Home Office that they will not voluntarily stockpile the personal records of their customers for long periods so that they can be accessed by police or intelligence officers."
The question is, WHY did they refuse?
Was it due to a principle, or was it due to the cost associated with the record keeping?
Sure, its easy enough to say "well done" and "finally some sense" - but do we really know what motivated them to say no to the voluntary retention of data?
IF they stick together then there isn't much that the gov can do, aside from switch off the Internet in the UK - and I don't think that's very likely. They know this has little to do with terrorism. If Sept 11 and Bali teach us anything, they should teach us that someone with no regard for their own life, and simple weapons (knives in the case of Sept 11) can do horrific damage.
They don't need to hack your computer, use strong cyphers, or any other "high tech" terrorism. Much more effective is blow something up with a lot of people nearby. These guys aren't rocket scientists, and the gov knows that - this is a cynical manipulation of human tragady for their own political ends. Personally it makes me sick. This is disrespectful of those who died on Sept 11 and in Bali, of course anyone who questions these new powers is accused of being "unAmerican", and "against the war on terror". This is just cynical political posturing. A better way to fight terror would surly be to remove guns from America society - I think that would save a lot more lives than reading my email or anyone elses.
Does Osama bin Laden even have an email address? It seems pretty clear that terrorists don't need such things, a bomb, a gun or even a knife are (tragically) enough.
Here in Iceland there are laws that state that isp must keep logs for 2 years at least. And if you are financial institute you must keep everything for 7 years, all emails everything. But we (the isp's) do not give logs away unless there is a rouling in court that says we must give the police or state the logs. But most isp dont keep the logs for more than 6-7 months, and this has not been enforced in many occasion. Until there is a definitive ruling by the suprime court that says we must do this, we don't.
David Blunkett has a habit of putting legislation into action that is far too heavy handed - think about his post-Sept 11 proposals, or his reaction to refugee housing. Thankfully most of it seems to get filtered out by due process.
He does seem to act a bit rashly, and seems to leap before he looks too often. I sometimes wonder if his presence is reverse-discrimination in action (he was blind from birth).
... and today's pet project has
I mean, the government gets whatever it wants, because it has all the power. It has all the power because it has all the guns, and that is especially true in the UK.
c oncessions citizen.
Not all the guns. The IRA still has a few, and the loyalist gangs have a load - oh, yes, and the Yardies tend to be well supplied, and the Tongs. But I guess you meant that the citizenry are not allowed to bear arms without a license, which is not routinely given.
However, I think that this is all but irrelevant in this case as (a) retention of ISP data records just isn't the sort of thing that popular revolutions are made of, and (b) as you say, most the of the people wouldn't even care (yes, sadly, the British population is just like the US population in this regard). You know the line "I've got nothing to hide, so why shouldn't they implant me with a v-chip?".
I guess the biggest difference between the UK and the US is that the media isn't privately owned to quite the same degree in the UK as it is in the US, right? But that media which isn't owned by private entities is owned by the government
The only publicly owned media corporation is the BBC, which is paid for by television license subscription. It's not really owned by the government in the sense that you mean (ie, the government can't tell it what to broadcast, or not - though God knows they've tried time and again). The problem for the government is that the BBC carries more weight with the people that the government of the day ever will - so they have to watch their step. It carries more weight, because it broadcasts the soaps and reality TV shows that keep Joe Couch-Potato happy and fat.
And the rest of our media are owned by sundry groups - right-wing (mostly), left-wing (rarely), and a big chunk of it by Rupert Murdoch, who's an Australian/American/Chinese/whatever-gets-him-TV-
Anyway, to attempt to answer the question - will HMG just make the retention mandatory - I don't know. They've backed down before when it came to crapping over civil liberties (and at other times, they've just shit all over them). My guess is that there are a hell of a lot of people using ISPs in the UK right now, and there just ain't enough votes to be got by ramming this down the ISPs throats. On the other hand, never underestimate the power of the securocrats - the ridiculous mess that is the RIP Act was their handiwork.
David Blunkett did go on record as saying that there were some things that a governing party must not do, even if it could steamroller any opposition (the Labour party has a huge majority in Parliament). So, who knows - maybe they'll just decide that without the co-operation of the ISPs, it ain't a fight worth having.
Watch out for the low-flying pigs though.
--Ng
Clearly though the idea that Echelon can hoover up phone/emails and record/scan them is just so much hooey, as I always thought it was. Reassuring in a way.
One problem, as others have remarked, is that most people don't know that this is happening, or forget quickly.
The current UK government is very good a raising stealth taxes (taxes that are easily forgotten). One of these is an air-flight tax. The budget airlines don't like these as they can be a significant %age of the total price; so they quote these separately - which ensures that everyone always remembers that they are being taxes.
The ISPs should do the same: itemise cost to provide service + cost to record all your traffic.
This 'in your face' mechanism may help get this obnoxious intrusion removed.
Does the post office record the address of every letter that you send ?
But "quite possibly" has not previously been a valid excuse for reducing civil liberties. The article qute clearly stated that, in the ISP's opinion, the govenment had failed to make the case that they data they wanted held would help in the fight against terrorism.
If it would genuinely, provably, help in the fight against terrorism, I would be happy for this sort of thing to go through. But what is happening is that the government is finding things that, in their opinion, might help in the fight against something - social security fraud, for example - and trying to bring that in under the umbrella of the "war against terrorism". And that random extension of police powers on only a vague suspicion that it might help is somethign we must fight against.
As a Brit, I am cheering this report. I don'tr want to be blown up, nor do I want anybody else blown up. But the government has to make a good case that these records will give a better chance of catching terrorists to justify both the infringement of liberties and the costs to the ISPs (which I, the ISP's customer, will pay).
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.