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UK Politician Criticised For Using Hotmail

Posted by samzenpus on from the make-better-choices dept.

nk497 writes "The UK justice secretary Jack Straw has been criticised for using Hotmail as his official government email account after he apparently fell foul of a Nigerian spammer in a phishing attack. A security researcher said using such an account not only left the government in security trouble, but meant any emails sent could not be necessarily accessed via the Freedom of Information Act."

9 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Not government account by todslash · · Score: 5, Informative

    It was not his official government email account, it was his constituency email account.

    1. Re:Not government account by Cally · · Score: 5, Funny

      I've been using gmail and gmx for at least a decade,

      How remarkably clever of you, especially as Gmail only entered it's initial invitation-only beta in 2003...

      --
      "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
  2. Since when? by GrahamCox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since when has Jack Straw been very interested in Freedom of Information? Under his Home-secretaryship Britain has become a surveillance state.

  3. Re:Not much detail in fta... by jgurling · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ok, so the bbc article gives more info.

    Looks like it was a secretary who responded to a phishing e-mail. Good to know we're all in safe hands...

  4. Straw and FOIA, best of friends. by Xest · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is the same Straw that rather than filing a legal challenge to the information commissionars ruling that the Iraq war documents be leaked decided to just outright make the first use ever of ministerial veto against FOIA requests.

    His reasons for vetoing were, from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7907991.stm) and I shit you not:

    "Releasing the papers would do "serious damage" to cabinet government, he said, and outweighed public interest needs."

    I'm not sure why he'd think it's in public interest to keep a corrupt, incompetent, totalitarian regime in power?

    And:

    "There is a balance to be struck between openness and maintaining aspects of our structure of democratic government,"

    Sorry, I thought the whole point of democracy was that we get to decide that balance, not those in power? His decision flies in the very face of democracy.

    So quite why anyone as per the summary would think Straw cares in the slightest about FOIA I don't know. He's just like Jacqui Smith and nearly all the others in the Labour party right now- a wannabe dictator who oppresses freedom of information to cling on to power.

  5. Re:Jack Straw stranded by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd pay them to keep him!

  6. Re:Jack Straw stranded by JohnBailey · · Score: 5, Funny

    Jack Straw stranded in Nigeria? It's more likely than you think.

    Given the proximity to reality most of them seem to exist in, stranded in Narnia is more plausible.

    --
    It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
  7. A plan with no drawbacks... by carou · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "any emails sent could not be necessarily accessed via the Freedom of Information Act."

    That may be exactly why he uses it...

  8. Ob Yes Minister quote x2 by mike2R · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sir Humphrey: It is so difficult for me you see, as I am wearing two hats.

    Jim: Yes, isn't that rather awkward for you.

    Sir Humphrey: Not if one is in two minds.

    Bernard: Or has two faces.

    --
    This sig all sigs devours