Originator: --- (GreenNet)
Date: 2000/02/10
Country: UNITED KINGDOM
Source: GreenNet

PRESS STATEMENT

1Oth February 2000

Peaceful protest is a "serious crime" in the British government's Bill to intercept private email communication

Statement from GreenNet

In September last year, at a conference on British government plans to give police and intelligence services the right to read private email, Patricia Hewitt, the minister for e-commerce, claimed these plans were necessary "because crime has become global and digital and we have to combat this". What she omitted to mention was that one of the "crimes" the government was setting out to combat was the kind of peaceful protest actions that took place in Seattle at the WTO meeting. This has now been made crystal clear in the proposed Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill. Continuing with a definition first brought in by the Thatcher government to allow police to tap the phones of union members in the 1985 British miners' strike, the Bill specifically designates "conduct by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose" to be "a serious crime" justifying an interception of their private email correspondence. The police requested that this measure be introduced in a report into the demonstration that took place at the City of London as part of an international day of protest actions on June 18th last year. There were violent clashes between the police and this initially non-violent demonstration.

The group that organised the June 18th demonstration is a GreenNet user and much of the organisation for the international protest took place using GreenNet Internet facilities. If the RIP Bill had been in place last year there seems little doubt that the police would have applied for an order to force GreenNet to give them access to the private email of people involved in the June 18th events. The police would almost certainly have wanted a similar order over protest activities planned to coincide with the Seattle WTO meeting. Under the RIP Bill, they will now be able to obtain such facilities to spy on the activities of protest groups. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will have to build "interception capabilities" into their systems. When served with an "interception warrant" they will be forced to intercept private email and convey its contents to the police or various intelligence services. Refusal to comply with a warrant will carry a maximum jail sentence of two years. "Tipping-off" someone that their email is being read is punishable by up to five years jail.

This also applies to informing anyone not authorised to know about the interception warrant. The warrant will initially be served on a named individual within an ISP. They may inform only those other people they need to help them implement the warrant and these, in turn, face the same penalties for tipping-off. The only exception allowed is to consult legal advisors.

A separate section of the Bill deals with encryption. This provides for

"properly authorised persons (such as members of the law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies) to serve written notices on individuals or bodies requiring the surrender of information (such as a decryption key) to enable them to understand (make intelligible) protected material which they lawfully hold, or are likely to."

Such an order can be served on anyone "there are reasonable grounds for believing" has an encryption key. They could face two years jail for not revealing the key and are also subject to the same possible five year jail sentence as ISPs for informing someone that attempts are being made by the authorities to read their email. This section of the Bill has been widely condemned by civil liberties lawyers as reversing the fundamental right of a person to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and will almost certainly be challenged using the European Convention on Human Rights.

The British Bill is part of long term plans that have been developed since 1993 to give law enforcement bodies around the world the ability to intercept and read modern digital communications. In that year, the FBI initiated an International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar (ILETS) for that purpose. The ILETS group has operated behind the back of elected parliamentary bodies and within the European Union its plans have been implemented through secret meetings of the Council for Justice and Home Affairs (CJHA).

An essential part of these plans involve international collaboration between law enforcement bodies. Large sections of the RIP Bill deal with "International mutual assistance agreements" to intercept communications. Particular reference is made to a "draft Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters" produced within the CJHA. This Convention lays out plans for communications taking place between individuals in one country to be intercepted in another. The RIP Bill includes specific legislation "to enable the United Kingdom to comply with the interception provisions in this draft". The Bill's Explanatory Notes go on to say that "Although no similar agreements are currently under negotiation, this subsection will provide flexibility for the future".

In fact, Hansard records of a debate on the draft Convention in the House of Lords reveal that "it is hoped that in due course substantially similar provisions will be adopted by members of the Council of Europe and that there will be co-operation on similar lines with the United States and Commonwealth countries" (Lord Hoffman. Moving a report on behalf of the government. 7 May 1998).

The Council of Europe has 41 member states and includes many countries with extremely dubious democratic credentials and some very partisan "law enforcement" bodies (Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, etc). At the same time, the ILETS group at the centre of the plans for international co-operation in communication interception includes Hong Kong, now part of mainland China.

In many of these countries, opposition to the government or just fighting for democratic rights is regarded as "serious crime". Yet the RIP Bill proposes open ended legislation to allow interception from the UK of "communications of subjects on the territory of another country according to the law of that country" at the request of "the competent authority" in that country. It even proposes that "Since no decision is being made on the merits of the case...it is considered appropriate for these warrants to be issued by senior officials rather than the Secretary of State."

The RIP Bill is an extremely reactionary piece of legislation dressed up with New Labour "spin" to make it appear as if it limits state spying on citizens when it actually extends it dramatically. The Bill represents a serious threat to the rights of those who use the Internet to campaign on social justice issues, both in Britain and internationally. Representation to the Home Office from GreenNet over this was disregarded. Although GreenNet's submission was included on the Home Office web site, the points we made were totally ignored in the Home Office summary of submissions. We have been one of the most active ISPs within the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) in expressing a viewpoint on the Bill, yet we were not included in the 20 strong ISPA delegation that the Home Office selected to meet.

GreenNet intends working with sympathetic civil liberties groups, lawyers, politicians and Internet policy organisations against the passing of the Bill. We call for the widest possible international support for this campaign from ISPs and user groups using the Internet for social campaigning purposes. The RIP Bill represents a serious threat to us all. Campaigning against it will be an important part of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) European Civil Society Internet Rights Campaign, which GreenNet is playing a major role in.

Anyone who wants to help in this campaign please contact ir@gn.apc.org

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