Immediate.

While highly critical of detail, the Joint Committee on the Communications Data Bill is too accepting of its central premise. No case has been made for push-button surveillance, NO2ID points out today.

The influential parliamentary committee describes Home Office evidence in numerous places as ‘misleading’ or ‘fanciful and misleading’, but its report accepts untested the motivating idea that the surveillance we already have is not too much, and not enough. Large sections encourage the expansion of data-sharing.

NO2ID points out that the question it asked at the beginning of the consultation remains unanswered. ‘What problem does it solve that cannot be handled already?’ In hundreds of hours of discussions the Home Office has not bothered to make the basic case, beyond a few cherry-picked and sensational anecdotes.

The core of the Bill is a proposal to make access to more information about everyone’s communications and internet use easier for a huge range of official purposes. By putting spy equipment into every significant communications loop, supervised not by a judge but by secret software, the ambition is to be able to collate a dossier on any citizen and his contacts at the push of a button.

NO2ID told the committee in written evidence:

It is our contention that surveillance powers as significant as the capture of communications data ought to cause the investigating authorities some time and trouble to use

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said today:

While we welcome the Committee’s detailed criticism, they are still too trusting. A massive increase in the Home Office’s powers needs substantial justification. While it may seem obvious to officials that giving officials more power is a Good Thing, our free society is founded on limiting their power. The case has not been made for push-button surveillance.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/joint-select/draft-communications-bill/

2) NO2ID is the national campaign against the database state, the tendency to try to use computers to manage society by maintaining state files on people.

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:

Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
OR
James Baker (Campaigns Manager, campaigns@no2id.net) on 07817605 162

Immediate – 13th June 2012

It is reported that on Thursday morning (14th June) the Home Secretary will announce a ‘Communications Data Bill’, the heavily-trailed Whitehall plan to get automatic access to records of ALL online activity in the UK.

First openly proposed by the Labour administration in 2008 [1], the bizarrely secret-but-widely-canvassed programme would force internet and telephone companies to keep detailed records of all their customers’ communications, downloads and browsing, location data and contacts. In the final vision, machines and software controlled by the authorities would be live on the net at all times and have privileges to crawl through the vast masses of data collected on the public.

Campaign group NO2ID [2] has previously pointed out that this scheme is ‘leapfrogging China’ and will ensure Britain remains the most watched society on earth. [3]

This is pretended to be ‘maintaining capacity’ – but the vital difference is not just a hugely greater scope of surveillance, but that it would not be limited by the need to ask anyone for the information.

What will be maintained is the system established in 2000 where surveillance is initiated without a warrant or any kind of scrutiny of individual cases. The Surveillance Commissioners are called ‘watchdogs’ but only check the procedure by which hundreds of official bodies authorize themselves, not their justification for doing it.

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said:

This makes Coalition promises to ‘roll-back the database state’ laughable. A system of secret, silent, total surveillance that can be turned on and off at will: a free-for-all for every official with an itch to investigate any citizen.

If it is to stop short of tyranny, then the watchers must be brought under a real rule of law. Before talking about expanding these powers, we should establish a simple rule with judges protecting our privacy unless there is good reason to invade it: no surveillance without a warrant.’

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) ‘Jacqui Smith plans broad new ‘Big Brother’ surveillance powers’ – Telegraph 15 Oct 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/3202766/Jacqui-Smith-plans-broad-new-Big-Brother-surveillance-powers.html

2) NO2ID is the national campaign against the database state, the tendency to try to use computers to manage society by maintaining state files on people.

3) ‘Home Office prepares to announce total surveillance plan – NO2ID 19 Feb 2012
http://press.mu.no2id.net/2012-02/home-office-prepares-to-announce-total-surveillance-plan/
That release contains much more background information.

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308 (London)
or
James Baker (Campaigns Manager, campaigns@no2id.net) on 07817 605 162 (Leeds)

Immediate [not an April fool]

The Sunday Times this morning confirmed [1] earlier reports [2] that the government plans to force internet service providers to keep records of all browsing, email, gaming and chat use, and to make those records available to the authorities. It is now revealed the plan is to go further and allow real time snooping by the intelligence services. It will take place without a warrant, as most official surveillance already does [3].

Campaign group NO2ID [3] has previously pointed out that this scheme is ‘leapfrogging China’ and will ensure Britain remains the most watched society on earth.[4]

The coalition government appears to have reversed its position on privacy against the database state. This news follows a little-reported announcement by Francis Maude [5] that the coalition will ‘look again’ at broad data-sharing powers for government bodies abandoned by Jack Straw in 2009 [6]. Those plans would have allowed ministers to set aside confidentiality whenever it was convenient to them to use any information held about members of the public for new purposes.

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?

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) ‘Government to Snoop on all emails’ – David Leppard, Sunday Times 1 April 2012
www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/…/article1007226.ece (£)
… internet companies will be told to install thousands of pieces of hardware to allow GCHQ… to scrutinise ‘on demand’ every phone call made, text message and email sent and website accessed in real time.

2) Eg. ‘Phone and email records to be stored in new spy plan’ – Sunday Telegraph 19 Feb 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/9090617/Phone-and-email-records-to-be-stored-in-new-spy-plan.html

3) The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 allows hundreds of official bodies to authorise themselves to use surveillance – powers used more than half a million times a year already

4) NO2ID is the national campaign against the database state, the tendency to try to use computers to manage society by maintaining state files on people. See www.no2id.net

5) ‘Home Office prepares to announce total surveillance plan’ – NO2ID 19 Feb 2012

http://press.mu.no2id.net/2012-02/home-office-prepares-to-announce-total-surveillance-plan/

That release contains much more background information.

6) Keynote speech to the Information Commissioner’s Conference, 6 MAR 2012

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/information-commissioners-conference-francis-maude-keynote-speech

In May we will publish proposals that will make data sharing easier – and, in particular, we will revisit the recommendations of the Walport-Thomas Review that would make it easier for legitimate requests for data sharing to be agreed with a view to considering their implementation.

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:

Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
OR
James Baker (Campaigns Manager, campaigns@no2id.net) on 07817605 162