Slashdot Mirror
Secret Irish Data Repository Uncovered
topgold writes "During an initial public meeting yesterday, the Irish Justice Ministry revealed that for nearly a year, the Irish government has mandated all telecommunications operators store traffic information from every landline, fax and mobile phone call for at least three years. Irish Times journalist Karlin Lillington offers insights regarding this secret data retention regime in several national newspaper columns. A considerable citizen reaction is at the boiling point, stoked by a civil liberties discussion board and the rejuvenation of the Electronic Freedom Ireland citizen group. By law, the Irish government can deep-six any Cabinet discussions related to the 'deliberative process' and since this decision to retain phone records happened at Cabinet level, it could have remained hidden for more than five years."
Glad it's Ireland and not the UK. Unless they meant Northern Ireland .. which they didn't, I think.
Still, this kind of thing is probably going on in loads of countries, it just happens that they found this one out.
E000-VB14-G8RY
And it's only traffic information, not the actual data that gets passed. I would have thought they'd keep that kind of information anyway. If *access* to the gathered information is regulated properly, I don't see a problem.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
That small place at the top of society where all the power lies, is like a magnet for dirtbags. The more concentrated power is, the faster the dirtbags take over.
Notice how fast things began to slip right here in the United States after power was concentrated through the rash of recent laws. One day you look up and wonder, "Who are these people running my country?"
Ok, now let's see how many people bitch about this as usually do about the US government *possibly* doing things like this that no one ever seems to be able to offer up hard evidence on. Either we don't do it, or we're that damn good at it.
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
By "traffic information", I believe they mean data such as who you called/emailed/etc and when, rather than what you actually talked about.
That's a truckload of data, even if it was just "traffic information."
I wonder just what that means... "traffic information." Surely time, date, duration, initiating and receiving parties. I can't see them having too much beyond that... It should be a logistical impossibility to have any information about the content of all those messages... way too much data to sift through and catalog.
Interesting that this was reportedly done by fiat.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The techies were probably just "obeying orders." Hey, they were getting paid. And is it such a big deal since it only effected the "bad people"?
Hell during the crusades it was fashionable for people to walk around with blood past the elbows.
They were just making the world a better place!
The Irish have something in common with the Americans. BUT, America takes the cake. For a country, where one doesn't know whether their president was killed by a fellow countryman or a foreign traitor, where they don't know wether Area51 is a top secret UFO something or a big joke, where national secrets are too big to tell to the president himself, it has done remarkably well. Probably, 99% of USA's problems would be solved if the government is frank, honest and open to its citizens ;)
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
With good reason. Terrorism wasn't newly invented in 2001; Irish nationalist groups had been causing trouble in Britain for decades. Eavesdropping on transmissions from Ireland to the UK probably allowed a great many plots to be foiled.
I'd keep it secret, of course, but not out of fear of worrying the public; I'd want the IRA to think their phone communications were secure, the better to exploit this intelligence source. If word gets out that phone calls are routinely tapped, then the bad guys will switch to some other communication; encrypted snailmail, perhaps, which cannot be so easily compromised.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
How would you feel if *every* American story posted on slashdot received highly rated "Ah gone done aks mah sister f'r marry cuz she real purty" comments?
It wears thin very quickly.
This type of retention can be used to trace stolen mobile phones and can also greatly assist in the process of criminal investigation - some crime investigations have gone on past the 6 month retention time prevalent in other countries. See the Guerin investigation, or the Omagh bombing for examples.
I have no problem with this retention as long as it requires a court order or equivalent for the release of the information to the relevant authorites, and never to a non-govermental agency.
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
Its very worrying to see such things happening. The EU Directive on privacy in telecommunications in 1997 specified that personal data could only be retained by telcos, ISPs etc. for billing purposes and must destroyed after its usefulness has passed.
This was clearly a decision made on the side of personal freedom and civil liberties. It's worrying that the Council of Europe (a parallel organisation that is comprised of heads of state from around the continent) proceeded to adopt a stance opposite to that of the above directive, and began to mandate all ISP's and telecommunications companies to retain data. The stark contrast between the positions of these two organisations -- one democratic, the other a cabalistic gathering of prime ministers and presidents -- makes the difference in their motivations quite apparent.
The retention of data that has been uncovered here in Ireland is related to the Council of Europe's decision, and we can be certain that something similar is occurring in all the other states.
I am currently looking for a country to move to, I guess this neatly rules out Ireland. Bah.
"The explanation given for deep sixing cabinit records for five years is that many of them relate to the peace process.
"Yesterday the government proposed to be allowed increase this time to 15 years, given this on the same day we find out the've been snooping us is very disturbing"
Up to now, cabinet records have remained confidential for thirty years. However, under the 1997 Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, individuals are now entitled to seek discovery of records relating to cabinet decisions that are over 5 years old. As the act only came into operation 5 years ago, cabinet records from that time are only now coming under the provisions of the act. As far as I'm aware pre-1997 cabinet records cannot be subject to FOI requests.
So the "deep sixing" of cabinet records for five years is not a new measure brought in to protect sensitive documents relating to the peace process, rather it represents a considerable liberalising of the old system. This is why the government is proposing rolling back on these provisions: they're only now being faced with the practical implications. Whereas previously cabinet members could rely on their deliberations being kept secret until after they retired, now they are faced with the prospect of controversial documents being released while they're still very much in power.
I don't think the peace process is a factor at all: these sort of documents could probably be kept secret under the heading of 'national security' or some such thing.
...our American cousins are complaining about this "afront to civil liberties" while thousands of their own citizens are being detained, without trial or charge, in undisclosed locations across the US?
One would think that with Ireland's experience with terrorism, the Yanks would be applauding this!
I think some other posters have made the point quite well. Just because a government collects the information, doesn't mean they can do anything with it without a court order. I can tell you with some confidence that virutally all governments collect this information,it just that getting at it is hard (as is sifting through it - how many phone , cell, fax transmissions are there in your city or town in one day? Try picking out specific information out of that!).
Collecting information is morally neutral. Use that information to catch the Omagh bombers, and collecting it is good. Use it to track citizens arbitrarily and to detain them without trial or charge and it is evil. I'd be less worried about the collecting and more about how it is used.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
..."If you are not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to be concerned about" approach. Unfortunately, history has shown that things like this have a way or both growing out of hand and being innefficient (speaking here in terms of cost (i.e. freedom and liberty) vs. ROI (i.e. catching "baddies" like the abusive caller). Hell, why not just install cameras in everyone's houses and bug all their clothes. Then we will be able to catch lots of baddies. I feel more secure already. Hell, since only criminals need worry about this then I guess it would be ok to tag everyone who owns any firearms and then they should later not care if those firearms are taken away. After all, only criminals need fear a state where only the military and police carry firearms. (We won't bring in the issues of criminals having firearms thus proving that at least ONE of these measures here has been demonstrated to be "easily" circumvented)
SMTP offers no real protection against traffic analysis. Even if you encrypt every email you send, the headers are still sent as plaintext, so you can still monitor who emails who. Even if you use webmail over SSL, the emails still come in through SMTP.
Yes, you can set up your SMTP server to allow access over TLS, however since virtually no ISPs support this, unless the sending party sets up their own SMTP server as well, everything will still be unencrypted. Even if you set up your own servers, connections between the two servers can be tracked.