Slashdot Mirror
UK Gov't Plans To Push "Emergency" Surveillance Laws
beaker_72 (1845996) writes The Guardian reports that the UK government has unveiled plans to introduce emergency surveillance laws into the UK parliament at the beginning of next week. These are aimed at reinforcing the powers of security services in the UK to force service providers to retain records of their customers phone calls and emails. The laws, which have been introduced after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that existing laws invaded individual privacy, will receive cross-party support and so will not be subjected to scrutiny or challenged in Parliament before entering the statute books. But as Tom Watson (Labour backbench MP and one of few dissenting voices) has pointed out, the ECJ ruling was six weeks ago, so why has the government waited until now to railroad something through. Unless of course they don't want it scrutinised too closely.
Sad to say it, but its just true.
Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini would be very proud of what the UK has become.
Everyone knows the best laws are the ones rushed through the commons and passed on the nod in the other place.
From TFA:
Mr Cameron said: "We face real and credible threats to our security from serious and organised crime, from the activity of paedophiles, from the collapse of Syria, the growth of Isis in Iraq and al Shabab in East Africa."
Paedophiles are a threat to national security now? Organised crime? Maybe, but for heaven's sake how stupid does this government think we are, that we would swallow yet another use of pedophiles as the bogeymen du jour? That was a rhetorical question, it's not a question of stupidity as much as it is voter apathy coming back to bite us in our collective backside. Again.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
The wars are starting now.
The BBC news is reporting that apparently it's not as bad as it could be because it's not storing the content of phone-calls made, just who was called and when.
Anyone who wants to know just how powerful mere "metadata" actually is should go read http://kieranhealy.org/blog/ar... .
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
70yrs ago, England stood alone in Europe against the shackles of tyranny. A few years later, and millions lives lost, England prevailed. Little did they know at the time that less than a century later the same arguments made by the Nazis regarding an imaginary immigrant threat and terrorist would be used again by their own government. The government will save them from criminals, but who will save them from their own government?
FTA:
"I'll be explaining today why emergency legislation is needed to maintain powers to help keep us safe from those who would harm UK citizens."
— David Cameron
No need to explain, David. We all know this is just another excuse for more power-hoarding privacy invasion, and that "those who would harm UK citizens" are in fact you and your masters. Kindly stop pretending and man up. The only "emergency" here is the fear fantasy you're manufacturing and trying to get UK citizens to swallow.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
"Our data trawling has been illegal all along like we were being told but ignored? Quick, pass some hastily drafted loophole-ridden over-reaching legislation so we can't be sued...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Yesterday Glenn Greenwald published a new story about five innocent Muslim Americans who were targeted by the NSA for collections, one of whom was surveiled without a warrant. These people were lawyers; one was a Republican candidate for state legislature and a former official in Bush's Department of Homeland Security. We were told the NSA was only spying on foreigners, and here they are caught in yet another bald-faced lie. To me, this is a huge story. Puts names and faces on the people illegally and unconstitutionally spied on by the government.
Let's see, front page of CNN.com? Nope. Foxnews.com? Nope. If you search you can find like a blog post mentioning it. Same thing happened last year when the Snowden leaks first came out. They either ignored it or ran "Hero or Traitor? You decide!" fluff pieces or showed pictures of his stripper girlfriend and completely ignored the whole "hey, isn't this creepy as fuck and blatantly unconstitutional and yet is supported by all three branches of government and the bulk of both parties?" thing.
I was never the kind of person who thought the media was necessarily a mouthpiece for the state. I thought they were just shitty at their jobs and it was easier to report horserace politics and debates on "controversial issues" than real journalism. But this kind of shit...fuck man. There's really no other conclusion you can draw. The media intentionally downplays the abuses of the fascist surveillance state. And it must be intentional, because this shit is real news about which they could have their fake talking head debates and get ratings. It's right there...easy stuff. And nothing. There is only one conclusion to draw from that.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Similarly there's a lot of FUD about RIPA's password clause by people who haven't read the law which explicitly states that police have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone has a key before they can be prosecuted for not handing it over
Except it doesn't.
The actual quote from the law is:
IOW the defence has to show "sufficient evidence ... to raise an issue", and then and only then does the prosecution have to prove 'beyond a reasonable doubt'.
So this is a completely new standard of proof introduced into the British criminal system after 1000 years of using only the 'proof beyond a reasonable doubt' test.
How do you show 'sufficient evidence' that you have forgotten a password? Nobody knows.
AFAIK (and IANAL) no judge has yet accepted the defence has shown 'sufficient evidence'. How do you show a negative - that you don't know something? Maybe judges think (correctly) that it's impossible to 'raise an issue', so the prosecution never has to prove anything apart from that you didn't hand over a password.
This is what's known as the 'reverse burden of proof' introduced in RIPA. You don't have to prove 'beyond a reasonable doubt' you forgot the password, but you do have to show 'sufficient evidence', or - if you don't hand over a password - you're automatically guilty.
What's more the Home Office code of practice says that even if you have 'sufficient evidence' - it might not even be allowed in court 'if the person fails to raise some doubt as to whether he still had the key when the notice was given'.
it's never happened, everyone prosecuted to date has been like the plonker in yesterday's news story who incriminated themselves for the simple reason they were actually dickheads.
Perhaps you're assuming no judge would be that corrupt,so here's a case of someone who quite plausibly forgot his password being imprisoned:
Incidentally, if you do get ordered to hand over a password - even to sometimes else's data you happen to have - you're not allowed to tell anyone, presumably not even to ask for the password.
Moderated Usenet