MPs and peers have just weeks to eyeball UK gov's super-snoop bid A joint panel of cross-party politicos and peers have been granted a very small window to scrutinise the Home Office's draft Investigatory Powers Bill. The committee is expected to report by mid-February next year – which is an incredibly short space of time to pore over a legalese-packed document that runs to nearly 300 pages …
There is a link at the bottom of that pdf, to another pdf..
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/426248/Acquisition_and_Disclosure_of_Communications_Data_Code_of_Practice_March_2015.pdf
There is a lot in there to be worried about, this for instance..
"2.7. Particular consideration must also be given, when pertinent, to the right to freedom of expression.[28]
[28] See the section on communications data involving certain professions, beginning at paragraph 3.72, for further information and guidance, including on the requirement for the use of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 until such time as there is specific legislation to provide judicial authorisation for applications for communications data to determine journalistic sources."
My emphasis in bold.
Journalistic sources are fair game apparently, along with everything else. IANAL and the guidelines are a bit wordy, but a lot of it can be interpreted in an 'abusive' way. Particularly the bit about stopping data interceptions when it relates to someone in a public office under particular circumstances - very shady looking notes.
Perhaps I'm just paranoid or I'm incorrectly parsing the information, but it basically says that they can use the RIPA for anything deemed a 'crime' or for anything they like really under a lot of pretext-type categories, and that it extends to anywhere in the world if it relates to a service supplied to someone in the UK. It even trumps the ECHR!
After further reading, it does seem that the author has given some thought to the protection of privacy and free speech, but I can't help but feel that it hasn't been thought through properly, or properly peer reviewed.
If this were a document I was reviewing officially the margins would be red with review comments and questions relating to unintended consequences and insufficient provisions or lack of clarity in purpose relating to some of the clauses - and there also appears to be a section where a particular term is used to describe data content, but further references in the section seem to muddle the names and use different ones (with potentially different meaning).
Not something I would expect a non-techie well versed in impact analysis (i.e. forward thinking) would readily grasp upon first reading, and once the information is parsed and simplified the errors can only be magnified horribly.
There are provisions as to how an application for intercept should be justified - I would like to see some real world samples to judge whether this aspect is being adhered to - I suspect not.
"... although there should be judicial involvement it should be an oversight of political decisions, rather than supplanting them."
Does this mean that the Bishop thinks that Investigatory Powers will be used for political purposes rather that legal purposes?
"At the end of the day, the role of the judiciary is to be kept clear and distinct from the political process."
I thought that one of the roles of the judiciary is to give protection from abuse of political powers.
Where might I find the blog of Dido, the 'Girl Who Got Away' with it, on the even more incisive questioning of the IPB we should expect from someone trousering rather more than Adrian's package?
Remind me what's the point of getting the big ISPs to do all this data retention when the bad boys will know to use the little boys. Its all complete fairyland stuff. Emperor's clothes call revisited.
"Remind me what's the point of getting the big ISPs to do all this data retention when the bad boys will know to use the little boys."
Does anyone trust the large ISPs with a record of their browsing history?
I've written about this elsewhere, but I'm very underwhelmed with the appointments. Only Lord Strasbourger and Stuart McDonald MP are likely to be pro-civil-liberties, and only Matt Warman MP is even slightly technical (and he was a consumer tech journalist).
7 weeks is really not a long time, and I'm amazed and confused that only 2 weeks are being allowed for witnesses.
IMHO the government are doing this all wrong. They should have loaded the committee with pro-civil-liberties, and then accepted most sensible recommendations. That would have then let them have a nice smooth progress, as the civil liberties camp wouldn't have anything sensible left to say, through the debates and the votes - the times when there is likely to be press interest. Now, they're guaranteeing a mess in the future.
Not his scary homophobic views, but his overall authoritarian stance. If you're bored, I recommend you reading his truly bizarre speech on the Investigatory Powers Bill: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2015-07-08a.190.0&s=speaker%3A13253#g198.0
And he's one of only 4 joint committee members who have even spoken on the IP Bill, DRIPA, or the Anderson report!
For more details on the breakdown: https://kingtut666.wordpress.com/2015/11/26/no-evidence-of-balance-the-joint-committee-on-draft-investigatory-powers-bill/
You should consider sending a submission to the committee, I'm putting together a document to send them. If they hear from enough sources in the field what an utter nonsense this all is it may be possible to get some movement. Or maybe that won't happen but at least we can say we tried before we throw more crypto at the problem.
@streaky
Absolutely! Everyone who has a clue should put in a submission - I'm already working on mine, covering a number of points (which I'm posting on my blog as well)
It needs to be informed evidence though. Just ranting about privacy will be ignored. If concrete examples can be given, etc, then a lot more notice will likely be taken. Hell, if they like the submission, they may even request you come down and given evidence in person.
Note that the link you provided was for the Science & Technology committee, so evidence should be limited to technical matters.
There is also the joint committee on the bill itself, which can be contacted for wider issues/evidence: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/joint-select/draft-investigatory-powers-bill/contact-us/
> They were asking ethical questions of their technical witnesses - but yes you're right of course.
Note that that was the Science & Technology committee, who were generally supposed to be focussed on the technical and implementation aspects of the bill. The S&T committee isn't great, but at least has some technical knowledge.
The joint committee are a different group who, frankly, suck on a technical front. Or at least, I've seen no evidence that they know anything about the subject.
Thanks for the link.
I shall certainly be putting in the written word all the reasons why this bill should be shelved and examples of cases where the powers they are already using have been abused. I will also give them an alternative using explicit judicial oversight that could work which is to have a warrant system that can secure information from the companies (google/microsoft and apple) that already retain the information anyway.
Do I think it will make a difference? No, but I will also forward it onto my M.P. and ask what his position is on the bill and ask that he explain his reasons if he is voting for it.
At the very least I will have tried to stop this madness which is what each and every one of us should do.
> why this bill should be shelved
One thing to bear in mind with any effort to shelve this bill. Everything apart from the ICRs (i.e. the ISP mandated logging of metadata), and to a small extent the National Security Notices, is already being done, and being done with very little oversight. Shelving the bill would retain the status quo - namely that things like Equipment Interference (hacking) will continue under the Wireless Telegraphy Act, with no oversight, will continue. Be careful what you wish for.
I certainly wouldn't bet the farm on Warman: news to me he'd become an MP, but he strikes me as eminently "suitable" for this committee. I'd love to believe the anodyne nature of his DT "tech" articles was down to overzealous "dumbing-down" by sub-editors, and he understood more and was less credulous (OMG NEW IPHONE MAGICAL UNICORN SHIT ETC.) than the copy betrayed ... but I don't.
He's got.Government Technology Czar written all over him :(
(and on an entirely personal note, a face I would never tire of slapping, were I not a pacifist type.)
Underwhelming, and I think we forget just how incapable of understanding the issues many are. This is not as they are stupid (much as it is easy to attribute every failure to this) but that they simply lack knowledge to such an extent they don't even realise they lack knowledge. Dunning Kruger effects...
It reminds me of Tony Blair's assertion that we should stop child porn by examining *every* picture posted to the internet before allowing it to be viewed in Britain. Admittedly that was in the early 2000s rather than these heady social media days, but still.
Beer, the best way of coping with politicians and their thoughts.
Actually anonymous on here does not work because your login is via plain text (meaning a visible session) and thus every post afterwards as anonymous will have that same session in plain text.
Currently anonymous is pointless on El Reg because you are only anonymous in that you name looks different once posted that's it.
My VPN to abroad is working brilliantly and has rotated/discarded keys. So all my ISP will see is one very long connection to somewhere of cryto-crap.
- S.A
Already reports coming through that various agencies knew that something big was going down before the Paris killers struck. I believe the services had alerted the local council in Brussels that a couple of these nutters where heading their way and were planning something nasty.
So remind me again, if they already have enough info to know what the nutjobs are up to, why do they need more info on the rest of us? Oh silly me, of course! So they farm can farm off the resourcing for this fecking huge white elephant to the tech supply companies that the MPs are on the boards of! Duh!
I suppose technically he is right.
How many pass-times are devoted to meeting the opposite sex?
Pubs and clubs are closing, dance halls have all but disappeared roughly the time glossy magazines came out and worst of all, young boys now occupying themselves in the dark recesses of their bedrooms instead of choir practice!
Maybe we should all don a rubber sock (C of E approved) and give it the ol' Westminster try, for the sake of our country and society!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
