| Are
new snooping laws flawed? |
| Posted: June 18th, 2002 |
| By:
Colin Coates |
 |
The government have proposed an expansion of
the snooping laws, which will permit several more government organisations
such as Local Councils, the NHS, FSA and others to tap into our e-mail
and telephone calls for the purposes of ‘crime prevention’ How does
that make you feel? |
Most of us are aware that there are certain government
organisations that are allowed to tap into our communication transmissions
for the purposes such as national or international security. Under
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers act (2002) only police
forces, intelligence services (MI5,MI6), customs & excise and the
inland revenue have the authority to tap into our communication transmissions.
If the governments proposed changes of the Regulation of Investigatory
Powers act goes through parliament and the House of Lords it will
increase the number of agencies that will be able to demand these
private records about you and me.
The Draft Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data: Additional Public Authorities) Order 2002 recently released by the government has requested that the following agencies and organisations be permitted to gain access to our communication data:
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Department of Health
The Home Office
The Department of Trade and Industry
The Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions
The Department for Work and Pensions
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment for Northern Ireland
Basically, they want every government organisation to have access to our personal data. They are going to need a hell of a lot of bandwidth and a lot of bums on seats to handle all that data.
I suppose that’s why they have announced plans to open a new snooping
centre called NTAC (National Technical Assistance Centre),
which will be based in the MI5 building in central London. NTAC will
be a twenty-four hour centre operated on behalf of all the law enforcement,
security and intelligence agencies, providing a central facility for
the complex processing needed to derive intelligible material from
lawfully intercepted computer-to-computer communications and from
lawfully seized computer data that are increasingly encrypted.
Isn’t that great, the only time the government talks about the Internet is when they want to either use it as a scapegoat or listen in on what we are doing on it. If only they would use some of that money to invest in government grants and loans to boost the Internet sector I dare say that their money will be better spent.
Just why does the government want such organisations as the NHS, the post office and local councils to access our data? That question beats me, but I’m just 1 in 55 million Brits. Some people are not bothered and can’t see the harm in it. If you don’t have anything to hide you shouldn’t worry, should you? Okay, then why don’t we just send our letters without an envelope. Just write a letter, stick a stamp on it and post it. What’s the worst that can happen? A sorting office worker will just have a little read of your letter and sort it with the rest of them.
That might not be a problem to some people but it sure is a big problem for others. Compromising the privacy of 55 million people just to catch out 1,000 criminals that might be planning evil crimes just doesn’t sound like a well thought out proposal.
Anyway, as I write this article I have just heard that the government have decided to postpone their new proposed changes to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers as the pressure from civil liberty groups and other anti-snooping agencies continue to mount. Although, I don’t believe that this is the end of the matter so place your vote and have your say on this very important issue. |
|
|
Search
The Web
Search
Amamazon.co.uk