UK Government Watch

The government has published a draft version of a bill that, if signed into law in its current form, would force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile phone network providers in Britain to install black boxes in order to collect and store information on everyone's internet and phone activity, and give the police the ability to self-authorise access to this information. However, the Home Office failed to explain whether or not companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter will be brought under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), and how they intend to deal with HTTPS encryption.

Faith in the integrity of HTTPS encryption is what makes online banking and the entire e-commerce industry possible, and Google uses it to secure its Gmail service, as do most webmail providers. The need for easy access to Gmail has been one of the Home Office's primary justifications for the Communications Bill, but technology experts are dubious as to whether it is possible to technically and lawfully break HTTPS on a nationwide scale. At this morning's Home Office briefing, Director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism Charles Farr was asked about how the black box technology would handle HTTPS encryption. His only response was: It will.

The draft Bill includes controversial measures to require network operators to acquire communications data relating to third party services -- for example, requiring an ISP to discover and record when its customers post a message on a social networking site, and to which other user of the site that message was addressed. The Bill does not specify what data ISPs are to acquire, nor provide any limits; the requirements for ISPs are to be set out in Orders made by the Home Secretary at a later date.

Writing in The Sun, Home Secretary Theresa May said:

I just don't understand why some people criticise these proposals. People have a right to privacy. But unless you are a criminal, then you've nothing to worry about from this new law. This isn't a snoopers' charter, it's a criminals' nightmare.

At a press and MP briefing at Parliament today, Julian Huppert MP said that he couldn't believe the bill could even be put before the House in its current form. David Davis MP remarked that, given that the RIPA process is already a disgrace , the Home Office should be introducing a bill that introduces warrant requirements to RIPA rather than making it even easier for the police to access citizens' communications data. He also revealed that David Maclean, the most right-wing politician the Home Office ever saw , will be chairing the committee on the bill.

Dr Gus Hosein, Executive Director of Privacy International, said: In the UK, we've historically operated under the presumption that the government has no business peering into the lives of citizens unless there is good reason to - that people are innocent until proven guilty. This legislation would reverse that presumption and fundamentally change the relationship between citizen and state, and their relationship with their internet and mobile service providers. Yet there are still big question marks over whether Facebook and Google will be brought under RIPA, and how far the government is willing to go in undermining internet security in order to fulfil its insatiable desire for data.

 Culture minister Ed Vaizey has confirmed the Government was looking at introducing cinema-style age ratings for educational videos. He told MPs he shared 'concerns' about the content of some sex education films and he is meeting with the British Board of Film Classification to discuss whether they should have statutory age ratings.

Films are currently exempt from the classification system if used for educational purposes. But nutter pressure groups are campaigning against anything related to sex being seen by children and trying to suggest that supposed sexualisation is the root cause of all society's ills.

Ministers are in the process of lowering the threshold for video games and pop videos to be submitted to statutory age ratings. A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport confirmed that the Government's new measure could also be applied to sex education films.

The issue came up in the House of Commons with Vaizey was responding to a question from Tory MP Andrea Leadsom, who has campaigned in favour of the move. Leadsom claimed some material in the videos was sexually explicit and completely inappropriate for young children. She said that some of the films, produced by Channel 4 and the BBC, were like porn . One BBC sex education video for nine-year-olds showed animated cartoon couples making love and contained information on wet dreams and masturbation.

A BBC spokesman said: All educational resources from BBC Active are produced in collaboration with education experts and are issued with clear guidance so teachers can use them appropriately in their classrooms.

Leadsom asked in Parliament:

There are many parents across the country who are very concerned about the content of sex and relationship education videos that are being shown to children as young as six and have no external rating whatsoever.

In fact, they are being sold for profit by organisations.

Can the minister tell me whether he would consider requiring them to be rated by the British Board of Film Classification?

Ed Vaizey said he would meet with the board of film classification to discuss the issue.

The spin doctors at 10 Downing Street have done well today. The media has bought - hook, line and sinker - the spin that the Defamation Bill will mean an end to the scourge of internet trolls.

The day after Louise Mensch's twisted cyber stalker escaped jail and in the week Nicola Brookes obtained a court order compelling Facebook to reveal the IP addresses of those who made her life a misery online, the government's spin doctors have revealed to a breathless media that weirdos who cower behind anonymity online will no longer be able to do so. All hail the Lord Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke!

All wonderful news - except that that is not what the Defamation Bill will provide for.

First of all, the Defamation Bill is - as the name suggests - only about defamatory statements. It will not cover comments that are offensive, unpleasant or constitute harassment, breach of confidence or an invasion of privacy - and the bulk of trolls' comments are in those categories as opposed to being defamatory as such.

Secondly, the Defamation Bill creates a higher hurdle for those who want to bring a claim in defamation in any event. Under the proposed new law (which receives its second reading in the House of Commons today - hence the media spin), a statement will not be defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant . What constitutes seriousness is not defined but the Bill is designed to ensure that there are fewer defamation claims in the future, not more.

Thirdly, the spin doctors have assured the media that the new law will mean victims will no longer need to go through costly legal battles to unmask their tormentors. If only that were true. It would still be a very brave (i.e. foolish) website operator who simply reveals the name or IP address of the author of a particular post without a court order compelling him to do so.

...Read the full article

As announced in the Queen's Speech, the Department for Culture, Media, Sport and Censorship is seeking views about the exemptions in the Video Recordings Act and about how advertisements shown in cinemas are censored.

Consultation Open date: 09 May 2012
Closing date: 01 August 2012

Please send your comments or if you have any queries about this consultation to:

AdsExempt@culture.gsi.gov.uk

or by post:

Advertising and Exemption Consultation Department for Culture,
Media and Sport
2-4 Cockspur Street
London SW1Y 5DH

Cinema Advertising Censorship

The government is asking whether the BBFC really needs to get involved in the censorship of cinema adverts. At the moment it is mandatory that the BBFC rate such advertising, but the Government is asking if the more general system of advert censorship provided by CAP and ASA is sufficient.

Option 0: No change

Under this option cinema advertisements would continue to be referred to the BBFC for age rating whilst also being subject to mandatory self-regulation overseen by the ASA.

This regime has been in place for a number of years and it could be considered that it should remain on the grounds that it appears to work effectively to ensure that children are not exposed to inappropriate content via cinema advertisements and consumers' rights are properly observed. Some may feel also that the statutory backing is an essential element of the regime.

However, as set out earlier in the preceding paragraphs, others may consider that the age rating role provided by the BBFC in relation to cinema advertisements is already adequately covered by the self-regulatory approach of the industry and that it therefore represents an unnecessary burden on business.

Option 1: Remove the requirement for BBFC classification of cinema advertisements

This option would potentially remove the financial and administrative burdens on the cinema advertising industry of having to submit each advert to the BBFC for an age rating. Arguably, this would also make matters simpler for industry, reducing the additional time constraints resulting from both BBFC and CAA clearance.

The BBFC has indicated that the current average classification cost is around £111 per ad classified. There is an additional administrative burden for industry attached to this process in supplying the BBFC with hard copies of the adverts requiring classification. The impact on the BBFC of removing the classification requirement would simply relate to their resourcing of this function.

However, could removing the requirement to age rate adverts shown in cinemas by the BBFC result in a reduction in consumer and child protection? The industry bodies and the CAA believe the existing advertising clearance system as set out in paragraphs 4.6 to 4.23, underpinned by the ASA's non-broadcast advertising code (CAP Code), is robust enough to ensure there are no regulatory gaps, particularly in relation to child protection, and that suitable consumer safeguards will be maintained.

This option would also not place additional enforcement burdens on local authorities

On music censorship the government is nominally considering 4 options:

option 0: Leave the existing exemptions in place and untouched, on the basis that either the present arrangements do not give rise to concerns to an extent that would justify legislative change, or that removing exemptions would place unnecessary or disproportionate burdens on industry for limited benefit.

option 1: Remove the exemptions from age rating for music, sports, religious and educational video works. This requires primary legislation to achieve. Removing the exemption would mean that producers would have to submit all film material to the BBFC for classification before making them available for sale in the UK regardless of genre.

option 2: Lower the existing content thresholds for exemption so that more products are brought within scope of the age rating requirement (as we have done recently for video games). This can be achieved by secondary legislation.

option 3: Ask other parts of the video industry to introduce a self-regulatory parental advisory system for the currently exempt genres, similar to the BPI's PAS labelling scheme for the music-themed products.

Option 2 is noted as the Government's preference

My Government intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public, subject to scrutiny of draft clauses.

So there we have it -- the Communication Capabilities Development Programme will have it's day in Parliament. We don't know what the draft clauses will be or when we will see them, but the Government remains intent on pursuing legislation in the coming session of Parliament.

The Home Office have been very good at saying what the problem is, but seem intent on keeping the technical details of what they are proposing secret. Is it any wonder that the public are scared by a proposal for online surveillance not seen in any other Western democracy.

Update: Promises Promises

From openrightsgroup.org

The Snoopers' Charter : the Communications Data Bill is about to be published by the government.

When the coalition was elected, they promised that:

We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason (1)

Nick Clegg added:

We won't hold your internet and email records when there is just no reason to do so. (2)

Now, the government is saying that companies like Facebook and Google must keep your email and messaging records for 12 months, whether or not you are under suspicion: and that the records (not the content) must be handed over on the say-so of a police officer.

The government are asking for powers to intercept and collect information about who you talk to online by snooping on your Internet traffic, in case companies based outside the UK don't agree to hand over your information.

That makes us all a suspect. Instead of being under surveillance when there is evidence of wrongdoing, you will be under suspicion by default.

As announced in the Queen's Speech, the Government will introduce a law to protect freedom of speech and reform the law of defamation .

The libel reform campaign, nearly 100 organisations and 60,000 supporters including leading names from science, the arts and public life have been calling for legislation to reform the libel laws since December 2009. Congratulations to all on this momentous stage.

Now we need to see the details of the Bill and will work to ensure the reforms will do away with unwarranted chilling, bullying effects of the current laws.

Over the coming months, the Libel Reform Campaign will continue to fight for:

• a public interest defence so people can defend themselves unless the claimant can show they have been malicious or reckless.
• a strong test of harm that strikes out claims unless the claimant can demonstrate serious and substantial harm and they have a real prospect of vindication.
• a restriction on corporations' ability to use the libel laws to silence criticism.
• provisions for online hosts and intermediaries, who are not authors nor traditional publishers.

...Read comments from supporters

Update: Details of Defamation Bill

20th May 2012. See  article from  publicaffairs.linx.net

The Bill contains a number of measures of interest to ISPs, including a single publication rule and new defences for hosting providers and operators of websites with user-generated content.

The single publication rule

Currently, a claim for defamation can be brought up to one year after publication. This limitation is measured from the last time the allegedly defamatory article was published. However, viewing an article online essentially involves the host transmitting a copy of that article over the Internet, which counts in legal terms as republishing the article. This means that there is, in effect, no time limit for making a defamation claim against the publisher of an online article, since the law considers the article to be republished every time it is viewed.

The Defamation Bill solves this problem by introducing a single publication rule. If the Bill becomes law, the limitation period will be measured from the first time an article is published, rather than the last, as long as the manner of a subsequent publication is not materially different from the manner of the first publication . This should go some way towards placing online content on an equal footing with offline content.

New defences for website operators

Under current defamation law, website operators and hosting providers risk being found liable for defamation if they refuse to take down content that a court later finds to be defamatory. A blogger could, for example, be held liable for failing to remove a defamatory comment posted by one of her readers, while the ISP that hosts the blog could in turn be liable for failing to remove defamatory statements posted by the blogger.

The new Defamation Bill provides a weak looking defence in cases where the defamatory contents was posted by someone other than the website operator or host:

5 Operators of websites

It is a defence for the operator to show that it was not the operator who posted the statement on the website. The defence is defeated if the claimant shows that---

• it was not possible for the claimant to identify the person who posted the statement, the claimant gave the operator a notice of complaint in relation to the statement, and the operator failed to respond to the notice of complaint in accordance with any provision contained in regulations.

This seems hardly worth having as websites are generally are not in a position to meaningfully identify posters, and so the defence simply will not apply in the vast majority of cases.

A new Children and Families Bill will be one of the major pieces of legislation for the next year to be announced in the Queen's Speech at the state opening of Parliament.

Measures in the Bill will include:

• Tighter controls on music videos and computer games to stop unsuitable material being seen by children as part of new laws to enact recommendations from an official review of child sexualisation.

The Home Office will also unveil legislation to extend police and intelligence agency surveillance to forms of internet-based communication.

One in three new customers choose to activate TalkTalk's network based website blocking feature, according to a recent statement.

TalkTalk introduced the network-based content blocking feature it calls HomeSafe in May 2011 with Active Choice for new customers,  meaning that new customers are forced to make a positive choice whether or not to activate the feature, there is no default option.

TalkTalk is considering applying this Active choice rule to existing customers too, but ordinary customer churn gradually increases the number who have faced it, which TalkTalk estimates will reach 1 million households by March 2013.

The Government is to consult on ISPs about new measures to censor family internet access.

Under plans being draw up by Downing Street, it would be up to customers to opt-in to receiving adult content online when they take out a broadband contract.

David Cameron is due to meet large ISPs to discuss the measures but he is understood to be against even tougher controls on internet porn..

So how come no-once is actually talking about what should be blocked?'

See  article from  pcpro.co.uk

PC Pro have been having fun trying to get Claire Perry to say what content she would actually like to see blocked.

Earlier this week, PC Pro contacted the MP for Devizes on Twitter, asking her to define exactly what type of content she would like to see blocked.

Our tweet read: Challenge to Claire Perry MP (@Claire4Devizes): we'll send you 10 website links, you tell us whether ISPs should block them or not, and why.

Last night, Perry replied: oh dear, I think you are missing the point. Sigh. What would a current device level filter block? Thats [sic] the test. Get a grip chaps.

...Read the full article

A sane voice from Francis Maude, minister responsible for cyber security

See  article from  telegraph.co.uk

The Telegraph reports from a press release as to what Francis Maude will say today:

And as we meet the challenges presented by cyber space, and shape its future, governments need to resist the temptation to over regulate and control.

The internet after all has flourished precisely because it has been shaped by its users, not by governments.

The Government's objective is to help shape an open, vibrant and stable cyberspace , the minister will say.

He will conclude that a multi-stakeholder approach is needed towards governance of the net -- resisting state intervention that would stifle growth and the free exchange of ideas at its heart .

...Read the full article

And a little about the practicalities of internet blocking

See  article from  bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

They are right. Network level blocking is not the silver bullet may have portrayed it to be. Easily avoided, it is a crude tool that carries serious risks, from blocking legitimate business content to introducing new security risks into the internet.

...Read the full article

State intrusion into private lives will be reduced after the Protection of Freedoms Bill becames law today.

It will curb local authority snooping, see the destruction of DNA samples and profiles given by innocent people and radically scale back the employment vetting process which would have routinely monitored 9.3m people.

Millions more people will be protected from state intrusion into their lives through a sweeping range of policies which will restore common sense to government.

The Protection of Freedoms Act will see:

• the scrapping of the Vetting and Barring Scheme and creation of a new Vetting and Barring Service to oversee a scaled-back barring regime focused only on roles working most closely with vulnerable groups
• millions of householders protected from some town hall snoopers eg checking their bins or school catchment area
• the scrapping of section 44 powers, which have been used to stop and search 100,000s of innocent people
• the reduction of the maximum period of pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects to 14 days
• DNA samples and fingerprints of more than 1m innocent people deleted from police databases
• thousands of gay men able to clear their name of out-of-date convictions for consensual acts
• thousands of motorists protected from rogue wheel clamping firms

The Act follows the review of counter terrorism and security powers and the scrapping of ID cards as the coalition government delivers on its agreement to put traditional British freedoms at the heart of the Whitehall agenda.

Home Secretary Theresa May said: Snooping on the contents of families bins and security checking parents who want to help out in their children's classrooms were never needed for state security and we have brought them to an end: I have brought common sense back to public protection with this Act.

The Protection of Freedoms Act will also see:

• an end to the fingerprinting of children in schools without parental consent
• introduction of a code of practice for CCTV and Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems (overseen by a new Surveillance Camera Commissioner) to make them more proportionate and effective
• restrictions on the powers of government departments, local authorities and other public bodies to enter private homes and other premises for investigations and a requirement for all to examine and slim down remaining powers
• the repeal of powers to hold serious and complex fraud trials without a jury
• the liberalisation of marriage laws to allow people to marry outside the hours of 8am-6pm
• an extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act and strengthening the public's right to data
• widening of the existing offence of trafficking for forced labour and ensuring that UK nationals who commit trafficking offences anywhere in the world can be prosecuted under UK law

Commencement orders enacting measures in the Act will begin from early July.

Tim Loughton, the Children's Minister, has accused mothers and fathers of aiding and abetting pre-teens to open accounts on Facebook.

His whinge was in response to Labour MP Ann Coffey who urged the Government and mobile phone companies to do more to combat sexting , where teenagers send sexual pictures of themselves to each other using camera phones.

Loughton said parents had a responsibility to monitor youngsters online, adding:

Having a Facebook page, you should be at least 13 to do that. That is not legally enforceable.

We know, and I know from personal experience, the temptations for younger children to set up a Facebook site and get involved with those social media.

And I also know that in too many cases they do that aided and abetted by parents. So it's not just a question of giving information to parents, it's making sure parents are acting responsibly on behalf of their children too.

A Facebook spokesman said:

Facebook is currently designed for two age groups (13-18 year olds and 18 and up), and we provide extensive safety and privacy controls based on the age provided.

If someone reports an underage account to use then we will remove it, and use back-end end technology to try and prevent them signing up again.

However, recent reports have highlighted just how difficult it is to implement age restrictions on the Internet and that there is no single solution to ensuring younger children don't circumvent a system or lie about their age.

However, we agree with safety experts that communication between parents/guardians and kids about their use of the Internet is vital.

Just as parents are always teaching and reminding kids how to cross the road safely, talking about internet safety should be just as important a lesson to learn.

It is understood the Prime Minister is considering new rules that would oblige websites hosting such videos to introduce robust age verification systems similar to those used to safeguard children online gambling.

Music videos are currently exempt from BBFC censorship under the Video Recordings Act 2010. There are currently no legal restrictions on children downloading music videos of any kind.

The Prime Minister is understood to be disappointed with the music video industry's response to a Government report that whinged about sexualisation of childhood.

Cameron is to summon leading figures in the music video and social media world to Downing Street for a summit next month and threaten censorial new laws if more is not done to protect children.

Campaigners claim there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of sexual content and explicit language in music videos which can be accessed by very young children on computers and mobile phones.

Around 200 million videos are watched each month on Vevo, a music video website popular amongst the young. Although MTV, and other television channels, censor sexual content before the 9pm watershed the same is impractical for video-sharing websites.

Music videos were singled out for strong criticism in Let Children be Children, a Downing Street commissioned report written by anti-sexualisation campaigner Reg Bailey, head of the Mothers Union, a Church of England campaign group.

The  government also remains 'concerned' by the style and promotion of so-called Lads' mags , such as Loaded, FHM and Nuts. This industry is also set to be called in to Downing Street over the summer to be asked what steps they are taking to protect children.

There is likely to be strong opposition to Government restrictions on accessing music videos online. Rio Caraeff, the chief executive of Vevo, has said that age ratings are unnecessary and would be difficult to enforce. Vevo has claimed the move would be bad for business and would cut the royalties earned by some acts.

Elspeth Howe's Bill introduced to the House of Lords a few days ago required ISPs to default to a censored internet feed until an adult subscriber requests otherwise and verifies that they are adult.

The bill also requires internet devices to be sold with pre-installed blocking software and to provide information about internet safety.

However it is a private members bill and is rather muddying the water for alternative initiatives undertaken by industry in response to pressure from the government and nutter campaigners.

For the moment the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has said it would not support the bill, as industry was already taking steps to address the issue. A DCMS spokesman said:

We understand the sentiment behind this Private Members Bill, but it isn’t something that Government would support. Much can be achieved through self-regulation and it can be more effective than a regulatory approach in delivering flexible solutions that work for both industry and consumers.

Howe's Bill reads:

Online Safety Bill (HL Bill 137)

1 Duty to provide a service that excludes pornographic images

(1) Internet service providers must provide to subscribers an internet access service which excludes pornographic images unless all the conditions of subsection (3) have been fulfilled.

(2) Where mobile telephone network operators provide a telephone service to subscribers which includes an internet access service, they must ensure this service excludes pornographic images unless all the conditions of subsection (3) have been fulfilled.

(3) The conditions are---

(a) the subscriber opts-in to subscribe to a service that includes pornographic images;

(b) the subscriber is aged 18 or over; and

(c) the provider of the service has an age verification policy which has been used to confirm that the subscriber is aged 18 or over.

(4) In subsection (3)---

opts-in means a subscriber notifies the service provider of his or her consent to subscribe to a service that includes pornographic images.

2 Duty to provide a means of filtering online content

Manufacturers of electronic devices must provide customers with a means of 20filtering content from an internet access service at the time the device is purchased.

3 Duty to provide information about online safety

Internet service providers and mobile telephone network operators must provide prominent, easily accessible and clear information about online safety to customers at the time the internet service is purchased and shall make such 5information available for the duration of the service.

Note, the definition of “pornographic” is taken from the Dangerous Pictures Act:

An image is “pornographic” if it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

There is a growing backlash against the proposals to let the security services monitor every email, phone call and website visit by politicians from both coalition parties.

Chief among the Conservative rebels was Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, who suggested the proposals were hypocritical given the Prime Minister's previous stance against the control state .

In a 2009 speech Cameron said: Faced with any problem, any crisis, given any excuse, Labour grasp for more information, pulling more and more people into the clutches of state data capture.

Rees-Mogg said: The Government ought to remember why it favoured liberty in opposition. The powers it creates may in future be used by less benevolent administrations.

David Davis, the former Shadow Home Secretary, said the plan was an unnecessary extension of the ability of the State to snoop on people. What this is talking about doing is not focusing on terrorists or criminals. It's absolutely everybody's emails, phone calls, web access.

Senior Liberal Democrats are also planning to rebel. They want the Government to clarify whether the legislation will allow GCHQ to access information on demand and without a warrant. The party passed a motion at its spring conference banning communication interception without named, specific and time-limited warrants.

Tim Farron, the President of the Liberal Democrats, wrote on Twitter: We didn't scrap ID cards to back creeping surveillance by other means. State mustn't be able to trace citizens at will.

Big Brother Clegg tries the angle that there is no central database

See  article from  telegraph.co.uk

While there will be no database, providers will be required to record all activities of their customers so they can be accessed if needed.

Nick Clegg said he was against the idea of a central database and the government reading people's e-mails at will. He claimed: I'm totally opposed as a Liberal Democrat and as someone who believes in people's privacy and civil liberties.

But in fact if the proposal is a rehash of what the police etc wanted under Labour, then they wanted the ISP's to provide access to their local databases so that the police could actually use it like a central database (albeit a little bit slower on database searches).

Clegg also claimed that the government will not ram legislation through Parliament . He said the proposals would be published in draft first to allow them to be debated.

Meanwhile Theresa May has been suggesting that the capability is primarily for tracking down terrorists and paedophiles. But of course that has always been the stated case, and it has never stopped the capability to be used for trivial snooping eg to help councils investigate all sorts of low level nonsense.

LibDems have been fed some blather trying to get them on the government track

See article from privacyinternational.org

An internal Liberal Democrat briefing on Home Office plans to massively expand government surveillance was today passed to Privacy International. The document contains significant evasions and distortions about the proposed Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP), and is clearly intended to persuade unconvinced Lib Dem MPs to vote in favour of the proposal.

...Read the full article

Comment: Obsessive control-freakery

See also Letter to MP by Phantom on the Melon Farmers Forum

The very reason I loathe Labour with a passion is because of the obsessive control-freakery they displayed during their years in power. With their being voted out, it seemed we were rid of these big brother tendencies. Now it appears some in government have been infected by much the same virus.

...

Kindly tell the Home Secretary where to stick her proposals for yet greater surveillance of communications.

...Read the full Letter to MP

Update: Big Brother Cameron Sticks the Boot in to Big Brother Clegg

11th April 2012. See  article from  telegraph.co.uk

The Prime Minister said that Nick Clegg was made fully aware during a meeting of the National Security Council of Home Office plans for police powers to monitor internet communications.

In a put-down to his Coalition partners, Cameron said it was important to remember that some of the most senior Liberal Democrats in government waived through the proposals before they were made public.

The Deputy Prime Minister hit back, saying he had made clear in the meeting that he would stop the laws unless civil liberties were protected.

Conservative ministers insist the new laws will simply widen the current scope of powers --- police and intelligence agencies are already allowed to monitor telephone calls, letters and emails. They dispute the idea that monitoring voice calls and other communications over the internet amounts to snooping.

Prominent Lib Dems have expressed outrage that the changes will allow the police greater power to track online communications, such as on Facebook and Skype.

UK Police and intelligence officers are to be handed the power to monitor people's messages online in what has been described as an attack on the privacy of vast numbers of Britons.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, intends to introduce legislation in next month's Queen's Speech which would allow law-enforcement agencies to snoop on citizens using Facebook, Twitter, online gaming forums and the video-chat service Skype.

Regional police forces, MI5 and GCHQ, the Government's eavesdropping centre, would be given the right to know who speaks to whom on demand and in real time and without a warrant. Warrants would only be required to view the content of messages.

Civil liberties groups rightfully expressed grave concern at the move. Nick Pickles, director of the Big Brother Watch campaign group, described it as

 An unprecedented step that will see Britain adopt the same kind of surveillance as in China and Iran.

David Davis, the former Conservative shadow Home Secretary, said:

The state was unnecessarily extending its power to snoop on its citizens.

It is not focusing on terrorists or on criminals, the MP said. It is absolutely everybody. Historically, governments have been kept out of our private lives. They don't need this law to protect us. This is an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary innocent people in vast numbers.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had resisted greater surveillance powers when in opposition:

This is more ambitious than anything that has been done before. The Coalition bound itself together in the language of civil liberties. Do they still mean it?

May is confident of enacting the new law because it has the backing of the Liberal Democrats, once strong supporters of civil liberties, but now obviously not. Senior Liberal Democrat backbenchers are believed to have been briefed by their ministers on the move and are not expected to rebel in any parliamentary vote. A senior adviser to Big Brother Clegg said he had been persuaded of the merits of extending the police and security service powers

The Home Office said that the legislation would be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows , and said:

We need to take action to maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes. Communications data includes time, duration and dialling numbers of a phone call or an email address. It does not include the content of any phone call or email and it is not the intention of Government to make changes to the existing legal basis for the interception of communications.

However these claims about not snooping on contents seem somewhat contradictory when considering the proposed extension to social networking. There the communications only exist as the contents of a web page. There are no dialled numbers and email connections on Facebook, just the messages on your wall.

According to The Sunday Times, which broke the story, the ISP's Association, which represents communications firms, was unhappy with the proposal when it was briefed by the Government last month. A senior industry official told the paper: The network operators are going to be asked to put probes in the network and they are upset about the idea... it's expensive, it's intrusive to your customers, it's difficult to see it's going to work and it's going to be a nightmare to run legally.

Comm

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said:

Astonishing brass neck from the Home Office, attempting to feed us reheated leftovers from the authoritarian end of the Blair administration. It is not very far from a bug in every living room that can be turned on and turned off at official whim. Whatever you are doing online, whoever you are in contact with, you will never know when you are being watched. And nobody else will either, because none of it will need a warrant.

Put aside privacy – and the government has – the scheme is an astonishing waste of money. What problem does it solve that is worth billions?

Comment: Acquitted

2nd April 2012.  See  article from  press.mu.no2id.net

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of campaign group NO2ID said:

Astonishing brass neck from the Home Office, attempting to feed us reheated leftovers from the authoritarian end of the Blair administration. It is not very far from a bug in every living room that can be turned on and turned off at official whim. Whatever you are doing online, whoever you are in contact with, you will never know when you are being watched. And nobody else will either, because none of it will need a warrant.

It looks like the Home Office is setting out to leapfrog China and gain the UK an unenviable position as the most monitored society in history. The automatic recording and tracing of everything done online by anyone -- of almost all our communications and much of our personal lives, shopping and reading -- just in case it might come in useful to the authorities later, is beyond the dreams of any past totalitarian regime, and beyond the current capabilities of even the most oppressive states.

The vague assertion that all this is needed to deal with the usual bogeyman, terrorism, is worthless. It is hard to imagine any threat that is serious enough to justify it. But something that aims to make surveillance easy will create a demand for surveillance. Unless it is subject to proper controls from the beginning, then the pretexts for access will multiply. That would mean the end of privacy.

Put aside privacy -- and the government has -- the scheme is an astonishing waste of money. What problem does it solve that is worth billions?

Comment: Same Old Policy

3rd April 2012.  From David

It's interesting that the new email/phone snooping thing is *exactly* the same as that about to be brought in by Labour in 2006 - methinks this one is down to the long-term Whitehall Mandarins, rather than any particular party....