4 ms·

Articles like this are truly surreal. It almost feels as if the debate about whether this data collection should be introduced is purely for the purpose of dis

Articles like this are truly surreal. It almost feels as if the debate about whether this data collection should be introduced is purely for the purpose of distracting from the fact that GCHQ has already been doing this for years.

rwmj 12y ago
Part of it is to retrospectively legalize actions that were (probably) illegal or in a grey area. I say "probably" because RIPA gives wide scope for "national security" actions.
- mortov 12y ago
  Technicalities such as whether actions are 'legal' are of little concern to the UK Security Service (their real name - for some reason, they don't like to use their initials publicly as other departments do). There is absolutely no possibility of any court review (not even in the new secret courts the UK has started for trials [1]) so debate about ensuring legislative cover is pure theatre probably to bolster the only press statement they ever release in response to questions which always states their actions are legally authorized and nothing else. What this really looks like is a move to shift the data storage burden away from CGHC offices and place it onto ISPs, Telco's etc. Direct access can then be made to the data without any of the associated costs of maintaining multi-PB databases which grow at eye-watering rates every day. Passing this legislation is a simple government way of saving them money and passing the cost on to business as a 'compliance requirement'. They also get the added bonus of plausible deniability - 'don't be crazy - the Government does not store that sort of information on you!'. They don't - they force your ISP to keep if for them. Sadly the UK seems a great starting point for such measures - experience is people are gullible and swallow the anti-terrorist cool-aid more easily than most. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-courts http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-c...
AlyssaRowan 12y ago
…although GCHQ has usually refused to give much of that data to law enforcement, because they don't trust PC Plod to properly not use it. (The National Crime Agency has not been too well received either.) I wouldn't say this is the "snoopers' charter": that's not quite correct. Reserve that one for the original bill that was forcing ISPs to retain total communications metadata and/or DPI - full GCHQ stuff - and make it accessible to law enforcement, who will… not have the foggiest idea what to do with it, actually - evidentially, metadata is pretty rubbish as it's tricky to properly analyse and conclusions drawn from it can have a rather large false positive rate. But what this is apparently is an attempt to revive the UK provisions relating to the EU Data Retention Directive regarding ISPs' RADIUS logs—yes, that's right, the directive the European Court of Human Rights just struck down. And it's an attempt to revive it in a way HMG lawyers think will survive another ECHR challenge, by saying it's national legislation for national security reasons and is therefore reasonable, proportionate, exempt (and any other bullshit they think will stick).
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  Er, wasn't it struck down by the ECJ, not the ECHR?
  - mikecb 12y ago
    Yes.

rwmj 12y ago

Part of it is to retrospectively legalize actions that were (probably) illegal or in a grey area. I say "probably" because RIPA gives wide scope for "national security" actions.

mortov 12y ago
Technicalities such as whether actions are 'legal' are of little concern to the UK Security Service (their real name - for some reason, they don't like to use their initials publicly as other departments do). There is absolutely no possibility of any court review (not even in the new secret courts the UK has started for trials [1]) so debate about ensuring legislative cover is pure theatre probably to bolster the only press statement they ever release in response to questions which always states their actions are legally authorized and nothing else. What this really looks like is a move to shift the data storage burden away from CGHC offices and place it onto ISPs, Telco's etc. Direct access can then be made to the data without any of the associated costs of maintaining multi-PB databases which grow at eye-watering rates every day. Passing this legislation is a simple government way of saving them money and passing the cost on to business as a 'compliance requirement'. They also get the added bonus of plausible deniability - 'don't be crazy - the Government does not store that sort of information on you!'. They don't - they force your ISP to keep if for them. Sadly the UK seems a great starting point for such measures - experience is people are gullible and swallow the anti-terrorist cool-aid more easily than most. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-courts http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-c...

AlyssaRowan 12y ago

…although GCHQ has usually refused to give much of that data to law enforcement, because they don't trust PC Plod to properly not use it. (The National Crime Agency has not been too well received either.) I wouldn't say this is the "snoopers' charter": that's not quite correct. Reserve that one for the original bill that was forcing ISPs to retain total communications metadata and/or DPI - full GCHQ stuff - and make it accessible to law enforcement, who will… not have the foggiest idea what to do with it, actually - evidentially, metadata is pretty rubbish as it's tricky to properly analyse and conclusions drawn from it can have a rather large false positive rate. But what this is apparently is an attempt to revive the UK provisions relating to the EU Data Retention Directive regarding ISPs' RADIUS logs—yes, that's right, the directive the European Court of Human Rights just struck down. And it's an attempt to revive it in a way HMG lawyers think will survive another ECHR challenge, by saying it's national legislation for national security reasons and is therefore reasonable, proportionate, exempt (and any other bullshit they think will stick).

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
Er, wasn't it struck down by the ECJ, not the ECHR?
- mikecb 12y ago
  Yes.