> Taken together, the requests reflect exactly what critics of the Investigatory Powers Act feared would happen: that a once-shocking power that was granted on the back of terrorism fears is being slowly extended to even the most obscure government agency for no reason other that it will make bureaucrats' lives easier.
> None of the agencies would be required to apply for warrants to access people’s internet connection data, and they would be added to another 50-plus agencies that already have access, including the Food Standards Agency, Gambling Commission, and NHS Business Services Authority.
I find this deeply worrying, but among the people I work with and my immediate circle of friends and acquaintances I am in the minority. In my experience, people just don't care that much (a fact which I find very, very sad and troubling). My partner for example who is an otherwise intelligent woman doesn't really care - her 12 year old son even less so. In fact, I'm pretty sure he will be part of the generation that will grow up to regard privacy as some sort of slightly weird, exotic commodity.
I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and for a chunk of my life we lived with this sort of government intrusion - nay, we expected it. We expected letters from abroad to be opened and read, we expected telephone calls to be listened to and so on. Obviously, there was no judicial oversight. I remember we looked at the West with something akin to awe and longing: in the West, they don't read your mail, they don't snoop on your calls and sure as st they don't confiscate subversive magazines sent from abroad. It was like a fairy tale; in the West, they took your rights seriously.
30 years on, I look at the UK, my adopted home like a lover who fell out of love with the object of his desire. It turns out that when presented with the technical means to do so, the West is just as keen to eavesdrop and hoover up all your data: emails, phone calls, text messages, the lot.
Freedom and privacy are like a sausage comrades: you keep slicing at it until there's nothing left!
I'm a native Brit and whilst I agree our national lack of care about freedom is concerning I think it's slightly more nuanced than that.
My view is that people here are far too trusting of those in authority, and in particular counter-terrorist police and security services personnel. The attitude seems to be "if they think they need this then they know best". The collective psyche seems to take more comfort in the moral character of the people given the powers than in the safeguards against misuse.
On the positive side, almost noone I know thinks that it's appropriate that local councils or the Food Standards Agency have these powers. Those parts of government are largely viewed as "nannying busybodies" and the "nannying" bits of government are mostly distrusted - there does remain a British sense of freedom.
What's worrying though is that people don't seem to believe that minor agencies actually have been given these powers. When I've had conversations with people about this the reaction is "you're just exaggerating to make a point" or "they won't really do that, you're just concocting a far-fetched scenario that's technically legal but wouldn't happen in practice".
> My view is that people here are far too trusting of those in authority, and in particular counter-terrorist police and security services personnel.
I always though "brainwashed by TV" was an exaggeration. But the more I discuss with people, the more I realize they think the police/hospital/army/court works like on TV.
E.G: they expect that if there is a murder, an NCIS like team with try to find the murderer, or if they get strange like disease, some Dr House will be assigned to find the solution, or that judge are impartial and mayors are competent to deal with the solutions their city require. The reality is that people are average human being with limited resources everywhere. They are lazy, have ego, have a small budget, are tired, have an agenda, have bosses and politics, etc.
"authority, and in particular counter-terrorist police and security services personnel" is no different.
Also a Brit and I share the view that people are too trusting of authority. I also tend toward a distrust of authority.
However, to play devils advocate, I sometimes wonder if we are collectively too immature to not need some "nannying".
It wasn't long ago that food standards were compromised[0].
We also have problems with fly-tipping and dog fouling, both require a certain level of "nannying" to deal with. I just wish we could deal with such things without resorting to authority.
> I sometimes wonder if we are collectively too immature to not need some "nannying"
The argument against government isn't that we have our shit together and don't need supervision, it's that the government doesn't have its shit together and is unfit to supervise, or that it will rapidly become unfit once a position of power is created and inevitably attracts those most interested in exploiting it.
Everything you've posted supports the latter argument: the Food Standards Agency wants in on the dragnet surveillance apparatus, which is not their job, while they can't even ensure basic traceability (as evidenced by your link), which is their job? Not only are they unfit to be a "nanny," they sound like outright crooks!
I'm not aware of anyone in my circle seeing such agencies as being "nannying". I'm of the opinion that the Food Standards Agency improves life for everyone in the UK. I would rather put up with a little bit of nannying if it means I don't get food poisoning from restaurants.
I used to be all for freedom of speech and anti-censorship, but these days I've seen too many friends and family fall for miss-information. My university-educated brother-in-law believes in all the "5G causes COVID-19" nonsense. He even sent me a video on YouTube from a "Top American Doctor". Sigh.
ps. I think the solution here is to teach more critical thinking in schools.
That 5G nonsense thing is very like what the news was saying when mobile phones were first starting to get popular, stuff like causes tumours, cancer etc; which didn't turn out to be much at all.
But as someone who has looked at a wide variety of stuff from mainstream to far from mainstream, all I can say is that you really can't trust much at all, especially if it involves human issues (societal, political, etc).
Also the people who push for censorship and end up running censorship systems are exactly who you wouldn't want to run them. Foxes guarding the hen house and all that.
Completely agree with teaching critical thinking in schools. Also teaching people self defence from con artists and other malicious people they may be dealing with in everyday life would be great, something that would make them more prepared to live in a world where these things are common.
> ps. I think the solution here is to teach more critical thinking in schools.
100% percent agreement. Specifically, as its own course. How this is not part of every democracy's required curriculum for at least 2 years (class in 5-8 grade range + class in 9-12 grade range) is mind-boggling.
Don't give me crap about "there's no objective critical thinking" or "such a class would be impossible."
Even a basic survey of logical fallacies, rhetoric, and source suspicion would be beneficial to society as a whole!
> I'm not aware of anyone in my circle seeing such agencies as being "nannying". I'm of the opinion that the Food Standards Agency improves life for everyone in the UK. I would rather put up with a little bit of nannying if it means I don't get food poisoning from restaurants.
Is food poisoning from restaurants currently a problem for you? How will mass surveillance help?
> I used to be all for freedom of speech and anti-censorship, but these days I've seen too many friends and family fall for miss-information. My university-educated brother-in-law believes in all the "5G causes COVID-19" nonsense. He even sent me a video on YouTube from a "Top American Doctor". Sigh.
What are you suggesting the state should do to/for your friends and family who’s opinions you dislike?
Do their views mean that they are undeserving of human rights?
> Is food poisoning from restaurants currently a problem for you? How will mass surveillance help?
Yes it is - if health & safety and food quality are not set to a high standard (this applies to everyone BTW). Organized criminals will break all sorts of rules to make a quick buck - including selling horse meat as beef. How do you suggest the Food Standards Agency tackle this problem in the absence of a functional police force?
> What are you suggesting the state should do to/for your friends and family who’s opinions you dislike?
> Do their views mean that they are undeserving of human rights?
I have little patients for people who ignore basic scientific facts and believe the utter nonsense of so-called conspiracy theorists. It's their choice to ignore reality, and bring it on themselves to loose human rights.
I distinctly recall cases decades ago (but after the passage of RIPA 2000) of councils trying to use investigatory powers on things like, (I think I'm remembering this right) parents suspected of applying for schools outside their catchment area by lying about where they live. The hard examples of incredibly petty abuse by local councils, which actually happened, are out there if you want to go looking for them.
Yes. Some councils paid private investigators to follow and photograph families to try to "prove" that they weren't really living in the catchment areas for certain schools but had just rented properties as a postbox address. So not electronic surveillance as such but powers that they were indeed using under RIPA 2000.
I've tried pointing that out to people in the past (when the post Snowden legislation was being scrutinized by Parliament to try to encourage people to write to their MPs about it) and the reaction tended to be "see, they got caught and hardly any of them were doing it anyway so it proves that the system works". It's depressing.
It is probably not technical means, they always existed, the telephones could be listened to, and letters could be always opened.
Forgetting the history and not learning from it. The West has lived in more or less peaceful democracy since WW2, two full generations have changed, and the memory has faded. We, easterners are still the generation which grew up in totalitarian regimes, we do still remember it.
On the other hand, Poland and Ukraine are currently going down the path of forming a totalitarian regime, so I'm not sure if this holds as much in practise.
Can you elaborate regarding "totalitarian regime" in Ukraine? I don't like our current president and didn't vote for him, but I don't see anything totalitarian about him.
Mostly blocking the EU from doing anything about Poland, which is deep in there, and heading there itself (and Poland blocking the EU from doing anything about that).
It's not as bad as poland yet but it's getting there, slowly.
Sorry but it is very hard to understand anything in your comment. Ukraine is blocking EU from doing something about Poland? How? Ukraine is not in EU and can't block anything. Also, it seems you are not willing to expand on "getting there"...
Does Poland implement surveillance of their citizens in any excessive way? Just asking, as I do not know. The fact that the government is right-wing alone does not automatically mean it is going down the path of totalitarianism.
I'd say Poland is currently more at the fairly advanced stage of legal decomposition. The ruling group seized control over judiciary (the Constitutional Tribunal, controlling judges to the large extent). In the present crisis the legal foundations for everything that happens are very loose, with new ordinances interpreted ad hoc with the police's discretion or Prime Minister's Power Point presentations. The there's the controversy around organizing elections in May. The enduring legitimization of power can erode even further.
I would not call that totalitarianism, more like moving fast and breaking things, with no clear knowledge where they're going. The government is trying to avoid visibly mistreating anyone (aside from lots of verbal abuse on state media), they just want to do whatever they want. As to the longer term effects of such tendencies, I leave it to the reader's judgment.
As to surveillance, it was dug up by NGOs that provincial government offices are collecting cell network localization data on quarantined people. Apparently the emergency statute lets them do it even for everyone in an "anonymized" fashion.
Poland prevents the opposition from being able to take part in the government and pursues minority groups (political or otherwise), a totalitarian government doesn't require surveillance but I do recall from some newsreport some time ago that they approved quite wide ranging powers to the police.
> prevents the opposition from being able to take part in the government
This is definitely not specific to Poland, and unfortunately very typical across entire political spectrum and countries. I cannot quickly recall any European country where opposition is given meaningful part in government.
> totalitarian government doesn't require surveillance
I might disagree with you on this. That is what actually is very much required.
As said, if you take away dislike for left or right and look from politically neutral point of view, you can see that power corrupts politicians regardless of their affiliations.
People like you, who care about freedom and privacy, exist. I am also from behind the Iron Curtain, albeit I was born some years after it has fallen - fortunately, but the experience was ingrained in my parents. IMHO the problem is that people like us are distributed around the world, which puts us in a minority anywhere; we need to group up and watch each other's backs.
"Here's a list of all the organisations that can get a warrant to get your metadata" would be a good, interesting story and we (us in the UK) need to have that discussion and hold politicians to account.
That job - holding MPs to account - is made harder by stories like this, because people write letters saying "stop reading my emails" and they get a reply saying "we never were reading your emails".
Notably in that case the police yet again reflexively denied actually using the power:
"At first Sussex police denied that Mr Wolfgang had been detained or searched but a spokesman later admitted that he had been issued with a section 44 stop and search form under the Terrorism Act."
which rather suggests that they used as a convenient way to stop the government being embarrassed, as opposed to its proper use of frustrating serious crime (if they really thought he was a terrorist he'd have been processed with more diligence).
This is exactly why the position to adopt w.r.t. government spying powers is that _it should not have any_. Yes, even if that makes it easier for theoretical terrorists or pedophiles or what-not. That threat is far lower than the certainty of oppressive use of this powers by government.
Politicians and bureaucrats love the stuff that China does. So they want to have the same toys. They will never constrain themselves with stupid issues like human rights. And of course they will use these powers to our disadvantage. Sooner or later people will notice this. But tragically at that point there will be no way back except for violance. I make this sad prediction: The current trend to ever more oppression worldwide will backlash in violence. It might be that we will witness bureaucrats hang.
It's very rare for people to rise up against their leaders when they have food.
Since food is so very cheap in todays world, a country has to be in a very dire economic position before the government can't provide the people food and they overthrow it.
Even so, most governments will happily use their army against their own people, and with modern weapons being so efficient, even failing to feed your people doesn't necessarily lead to a change in government. Modern governments are very stable, except for outside influence.
I do not think it is a matter of food. I think that an oppressive regime will inevitably decrease the conditions for the poor masses. Look at how poor black people are massively overrepresented in US prisons. I think this is caused by the simple fact that the oppression takes the path of the least resistance. Now combine this with city-wide riots and you have a recipe for a "nothing left to lose" situation that could quickly escalate.
Indeed it is: "These regulations include the addition of five public authorities who will gain the power to obtain communications data as they are increasingly unable to rely on local police forces to investigate crimes on their behalf."
It isn't obvious to me that the proper fix for the police being inadequately resourced for investigating crimes is to grant policing powers to a wider range of departments. In principle the police receive both specialist training and supervision to ensure that their powers are properly used; abusive use of the earlier RIPA legislation by councils became notorious, e.g:
The police have never investigated all crime. The various tax offices investigate tax fraud; local authority environmental health investigate a variety of piracy and weights and measures crimes; local councils investigate illegal landlords. There are loads of examples of crimes that are not, and never have been, investigated by English police forces.
> abusive use of the earlier RIPA legislation by councils became notorious,
But this is RIPA working as intended. Pre-RIPA those councils were engaging in this kind of surveillance unchecked. After RIPA they have to justify the surveillance, and we the public now have a way to stop them if they're going too far.
RIPA was never intended as "anti terror" law, it was designed to reduce surveillance and bring the rest under a regulatory framework.
The idea that any legislation brought forward since the Blair era was intended to _reduce_ surveillance and authoritarianism is quite simply laughable, though it turns out that May (as Home Secretary) and not Blair (though his government was the worst offender at normalisation of this.
Yes, and it's very vague indeed: crime, risks and hazards, and fraudulent activities. These are terms that governmental organizations can use as they see fit, depending on the situation.
Take your pick from the following: The economic fallout of the pandemic -> failed states -> more migration waves.....
Don't forget the ongoing climate catastrophe.
All things that could be solved without resorting to authoritarianism if we were a little less of an, to paraphrase Q from Star Trek NG, "adolescent child race".
>What's the official justification behind this? First, it was terrorism, then maybe a pandemic, what's next?
Paint me a cynic but I'd not be supprised if we don't see the headline of "Terrorist pandemic" used in headlines within a few years as the definition of `terrorist` is expanded to include everything upto and including a badly worded tweet that is open to strawman interpretations.
> the British government is asking that five more public authorities be added to the list of bodies that can access data scooped up under the nation's mass-surveillance laws: [including] the UK National Authority for Counter Eavesdropping (UKNACE)
The Register has an annoying habit of using very loose language that has the effect of overstating surveillance powers.
For example; "And lastly, the Pensions Regulator, which checks that companies have added their employees to their pension schemes, need to be able to delve into anyone’s emails so it can “secure compliance and punish wrongdoing.”
The phrase "delve into anyone's emails" here is an absurd mischaracterisation
Yep. Anything that implies 'direct access' or 'trawling' moves from being fear mongering to simply being untrue. 'Rifling through emails' and the like is showing a poor understanding of the legislation at best and deliberately trying to create fear uncertainty and doubt at worse.
In RIPA "Communications data" is explicitly not the content of the messages, it's the meta-data.
The Register have a good story if they focus on that access to metadata -- I don't think organisations should have access to meta-data without justification. But they haven't done that, they've said "rifling through your emails" and the implication (see other comments in this thread) is that this means access to the content of the email. That's untrue, it's misleading, and it's yet another example of piss-poor quality reporting from the Register derailing a thread by generating very many comments that miss the point.
And what is the definition of metadata? Is it just email addresses and dates or is the subject line included? Does it include any data extracted from email such as the names of other people or links to web sites? Does it just have web server IP addresses or the URLs and if the URLs does it have referrers as well.
Exactly where is the line drawn?
And yes El Reg is scare mongering as usual, but at least they stirred up some debate.
It conflates several legitimate issues pertaining to different agencies, their relative powers under the act. It also wilfully conflates different powers.
Not to say there isn't a large amount of discussion to be had around it, but if you got all your info from an el-reg article, you would be ill-equipped to have that discussion.
So the only way to keep my data safe is to rent a VPN in a country that don't get along with the "n eyes" countries. Wanna guess how many options are left ?
Using e.g. a Slovenian VPN won't help much if you're still accessing sites within the five eyes. You're still using HTTPS presumably.. the only thing VPNs would hide is what websites you visit, and if those are hosted in the US they can scoop up your traffic straight from the beam splitter.
The real danger is IC getting at the data in your accounts, which VPNs won't help with.
What is concerning about the UK is how apathetic the general public is to all this stuff. They have already accepted they need to opt into adult websites and continue to vote for authoritarian govt.
I don't think this is unique to the UK, it's just the UK is at the forefront overt public surveillance. CCTV has been extensive in the UK since the early 90s. Fighting crime with the "if you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't need to worry" Orwellian attitude is generally accepted.
Also, I don’t think this crosses people’s mind when they vote. The U.K. effectively once again has a two party system, and at the last two elections no real choice at all, given the complete lack of functioning opposition. Thinking wishfully perhaps, now the opposition has a reasonable leader again, politics should become about policy again.
>None of the agencies would be required to apply for warrants to access people’s internet connection data
This is misleading. All requests for any kind of Communications Data require authorisation [1] and need to outline necessity, proportionality and collateral intrusion, including details of less intrusive means already tried. This is a similar process to the warrant application process - the difference is that a Warrant is authorised by the Secretary of State (the Home Secretary) whereas the CD authorisation is granted by the Investigatory Powers commissioner - previously Sir Adrian Fulford and currently Lord Justice Levison.
To say that any agency can get without a warrant is misleading. Also, none of the agencies cited (Food Standards Agency, Gambling Commission and NHS Business Services Authority) will have the authority to request to ICRs [3].
The "warrants" offered by the IPA are meaningless and undeserving of the name, given that they're issued by the Secretary of State and not a court. The "judicial commissioner" process is equally farcical, since it basically just ensures the SoS filled out the paperwork correctly.
What is notably absent from any of this is a judge making any finding of evidential basis for warrant issuance, which is supposed to be the very premise of a warrant.
For a particularly amusing example of this, consider the fact that the new UK-USA CLOUD Act cooperation forced the UK to create a new kind of warrant which, unlike all other IP warrants in the UK, requires the involvement of an actual judge. I guess the US looked at the UK's notion of a "warrant" and was having none of it. Ironically, this means the UK is actually holding itself to a higher standard when asking other countries for data than when doing so domestically.
The requirement for "proportionality" is equally farcical. This is, as I understand it, a result of the ECHR striking down previous legislation on the grounds that it is not "proportional". The UK's "solution" to this is, AIUI, to add a line to the law saying "any usage must be proportional". It says it has to be proportional, thus it's proportional, right?
A judge doesn't make an evidential finding when issuing a warrant, they don't study the evidence at all. In fact no evidence is presented. The officer swears that the factual basis for the application is true. The court is there to check necessity and proportionality on the assumption the officer's sworn application is true.
Edit: I'm sure they retain the right to inspect the evidence if they want to
That was basically what I was trying to say, yes. I wasn't saying a court would conduct its own investigation; obviously they assume the applicants are telling the truth and wouldn't commit perjury. But it absolutely is within the court's remit to consider the documents filed and decide whether the evidence presented therein amounts to enough of a case to issue a warrant. It's something conspicuously absent from the IPA, which puts this responsibility on ministers.
There isn't a reasonable argument that will change this. Hate to say it, but you just have to recognize the people who advocate it and socially isolate them. While the police became militarized, the public service have became a cluster of policing agencies, but without any of the limitations of powers or the accountability.
The Register, as they usually do, have chosen to put the most sensationalist slant on this possible.
"communications data" does not mean the content of the message. Communications data is strictly about the meta-data. None of these organisations are given access to the content of messages.
And intercepts (the actual contents of the messages) are inadmissible in court.
This is true; the UK has suffered under "temporary" austerity measures for over a decade now as well, in practice it means the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, while the health care system is underfunded culminating now in a pandemic for which they don't have the means to handle.
It's been a short-term cost-cutting measure that is now basically killing people and damaging the economy, on top of what Brexit already cost them.
But hey, a handful of people made a bit of money off of it, it was totally worth it.
> This is true; the UK has suffered under "temporary" austerity measures for over a decade now as well, in practice it means the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, while the health care system is underfunded culminating now in a pandemic for which they don't have the means to handle
Laughable number of mischaracterisations in there. Focused entirely on oft repeated spurious memetically distributed fake news items. Which no doubt you would Google and paste to support your assertions.
What country wouldn't though? I mean, take the US which literally allows people to have guns to rise up against the government, but they don't because they're too busy spreading their attention between the three jobs they need to make ends meet and pay off their student loan / medical bills and the ten streaming services or 24 hour news networks that demand what little remains of their attention.
didn't realise you represented the entirety of the UK. those who wish to remain anonymous will always find a way to do so. those who don't mind herd security / crowdsourced policing will continue not to mind
> None of the agencies would be required to apply for warrants to access people’s internet connection data, and they would be added to another 50-plus agencies that already have access, including the Food Standards Agency, Gambling Commission, and NHS Business Services Authority.