UK Gov. Clueless About Own Internet Blacklist

spge writes "Computer Shopper magazine has interviewed the UK Home Office about its relationship with the Internet Watch Foundation and discovered that the government doesn't actually know what the IWF does, although it still plans to force UK ISPs to subscribe to the IWF's blacklist. The main story makes for interesting reading, but the best bit is the full transcript of the interview. Short version: the IWF investigates suspected child porn websites and adds any it finds to a list that ISPs can use to block these sites; uk.gov wants ISPs to use this list; however, the IWF is not an official government organization, does not appear to have legal permission to view child pornography, and quite possibly is breaking the law by doing so."

Comments

Who watches the watchers?

[tacarat]

They're going to be getting some interesting job applicants, aren't they?

Re:Who watches the watchers?

[badfish99]

If you value your children, don't go to live in Cambridge.

The whole premiss of the IWF is that looking at this stuff makes you into a child-molesting pervert. The offices of the IWF (according to their website) are in Cambridge. So Cambridge must be full of child-molesting perverts working for the IWF.

If I'm wrong and it is not, I'm sorry for the accusation. But in that case, the whole basis of what the IWF is doing is wrong, and so the organization is pointless and should be disbanded.

Re:Who watches the watchers?

[Archtech]

No, no, no! You've got it all wrong. Looking at CP images makes you a pervert if you are a bad person. It's quite all right if you are a good person. The IWF - like the government, of course - are good people, so there's no problem.

This is strictly analogous to the logic whereby terrorists who kill people are irredeemably wicked (and usually "mindless"), while governments who kill thousands of times as many people are good (although maybe a tad careless).

Re:Who watches the watchers?

[Bloke down the pub]

the people who apply for the job are just the people you don't want doing it.

Are we talking about jobs at the IWF, or with the government?

Re:Who watches the watchers?

[yuri2001]

Hi, I'm just wondering what the hell can be a "clearance to watch child pornography" and who the hell is able to get or deliver one to another???

Re:Who watches the watchers?

[Klaus_1250]

Actually, no. If you look at most laws governing Child Pornography, it has jack squat to do with the abuse of children and paying for images of abuse. Virtual CP is illegal and criminal in many countries. Staged CP (adults dressed up as underage teens and purported as such) is illegal as well in most countries. Even actual consensual "CP" is illegal (ok, borderline, but google Traci Lords to see what I mean). If the abuse of children was what is was all about, authorities would do something serious about Human Trafficking, which victimizes 100's to 1000's of underage females yearly.

Don't get me wrong, I have serious issues with Child Abuse, but the whole fight against CP is symbolic and based upon morality. It is not doing much for the actual victims. Most abused children probably never end up in online CP. They remain anonymous in some dark basement or illegal brothel. And how often do you hear someone about that?

Re:Who watches the watchers?

[phoomp]

What's more, CP is often used as an excuse to target other entities (that have nothing to do with CP) that the government and their lobbies don't like but can't convince the voters not to like, such as The Pirate Bay.

Re:Who watches the watchers?

[mdwh2]

Indeed. On a similar note, when people call for things to be censored or banned (as with the recent law criminalising possession of "extreme" images of adults), a common tactic is to wheel out the story of how traumatic it is for the poor liddle IWF employees and police officers who have to look at this material, as an argument for it to be banned.

So um, who asked them to look at it? It's one thing when we're talking about police officers investigating a traumatic crime (such as with child abuse), but here the argument is banning things that are "disgusting", using the argument that the police officers find it difficult to look at them - but if they didn't pass the law, they wouldn't have to look at them! It's nonsensical. "I as a police officer don't like looking at your train spotting collection photos, so I want a law criminalising them, which'll mean I'll have to spend hours looking at them all..."

And as you note, it's a nonsensical double standard. If normal people view images, it turns them into killers; if police officers, politicians and IWF employees look at them, they get disgusted. Which is it?

This was also exemplified in the House of Lords debates last March or April over the aforementioned law on adult images. Lord Hunt invited fellow peers to attend a session at a police station to see the kind of images he was talking about, so they could see how "disgusting" they were - this invitation was not available for organisations opposing the law (who have tried to get information about what kind of images the law will affect, with no success - it's like talking to a brick wall), presumably on the grounds that those people would be perverted by the images.

Or in other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you report a crime without self-incriminating yourself since viewing said crime is a crime?

Re:Or in other words...

[Xest]

"I believe that ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers) have written a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in which they state that IT technicians investigating the matter will not be prosecuted"

Well, at least until you start demonstrating how careless the police are being with the law, suggesting that evidence of a system downloading something is evidence of a person owning the system being the one using it at that time:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/17/ore_bates_arrest/

Personally, whilst the idea of working for the police in the past has interested me when they've complained about a shortage of people skilled to do the job, I'd now keep well away. If they arrest you and try and label you a criminal when you're actually doing the right thing and trying to ensure justice is done then that's not somewhere I'd ever want to work. Effectively they're saying, look we wont arrest you for helping us find people loosely related to these crimes as long as you side with us against these people even if innocent.

As Slashdot likes it's car analogies, it's akin to a vehicle crash expert being arrested for pointing out the innocence of a guy who has been arrested for manslaughter because his car was stolen whilst he was at work and used to run someone over.

Re:Or in other words...

[Bloke down the pub]

I'd say kudos to the bobby for 1) applying some common sense and 2) knowing that those higher up the command chain don't have any.

Re:Or in other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, that was simply dumb luck. Rule of thumb: NEVER go to government with bad OR good news, because if you do, you are putting yourself at risk. At the very least you are in for a hassle, and at the worst, you can probably guess. Let government come to you. Just don't deal with them until you absolutely have to.

On the most basic level, government's only interest in you, as a citizen, is (1) taking your money, and (2) determining if you are a criminal. To be clear, government is NOT interested in minding their own business, because their business is minding YOUR business.

Again, let government come to you, and your life will be easier.

Plausible deniability

[Tx]

is what it's about. If they don't know what the IWF is actually doing, then when it goes wrong, they can say "wasn't us". That is standard practice for the current UK government. Fred Goodwin's pension? We didn't know about that. UK residents being totured by the CIA? Wasn't us. 400 needless deaths in a hospital? We've given local health authorities responsibility for maintaining standards. Etc etc.

Re:Plausible deniability

[badfish99]

The way this works with the IWF is that they say "we don't censor anything: we just supply a list of web sites to ISPs; if the ISPs choose to censor what is on that list, that is up to them".

The government says "we don't censor anything; if the ISPs choose to get a list of web sites from the IWF and then block them, that is nothing to do with us".

And the ISPs say "it's not our fault: the IWF gives a list of web sites to block: we've got no control over that list, and if we didn't block them, the government would make a law forcing us to do so".

So nobody has any responsibility for anything that happens.

The trend is to "guess they do a good job"?

[captainpanic]

Quite a large population "guesses that the government does an adequate job"... and anyway, it can't be changed.
The government "guesses that the advisors do a good job", and anyway, it can't all be checked, and we're better off with than without them.
I guess that my boss is doing a good job, but anyway, I cannot do his job, and I am clueless what he actually does all day.
I guess that the news agencies are telling the truth, but anyway, I can't go out to check it all myself.
And apparently, the UK government guesses that the IWF's blacklist is a good thing... and anyway, it's already there and its use can't be checked (easily by PM's themselves).

We're all guessing, and the system is easy to hijack. And we're all convinced that it cannot be changed, and therefore we're stuck.

I guess you all knew that already, didn't you?

Re:The title should read...

[krou]

If they're speaking in the name of the Home Office, then the title is spot on. Also, the transcript explicitly states that all questions were sent to the Home Office a full day before the interview "to give them plenty of time to prepare". If they can't even prepare properly, then not only is the Home Office clueless, but the PR man is useless at his job.

Regardless, what you said is exactly what's wrong with the UK government*: too many f*cking PR men with their dial set to constant spin-cycle. (Never mind too many unelected officials making decisions and influencing policy).

Who are these nameless idiots anyway? "A home office spokesman", doesn't (s)he have a name?

* Likely to continue under the Tories as well.