- guardian.co.uk, Friday February 11 2000 16.05 GMT
What does the bill allow the government to do?
For the first time intelligence services and other agencies would have the statutory power to intercept pagers, mobile and satellite phones, and email, as well as private networks, including office switchboards. Individuals or organisations may also be required to provide the key or the plain text of encoded internet communications if there were "reasonable grounds" to believe these were related to criminal acts.
What is the justification for the bill?
Besides bringing regulations into compliance with the <A HREF="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmbills/ 064/2000064.htm /" TARGET="_NEW">European convention on human rights, the government says the bill will allow the police and other agencies to keep up with sophisticated technology used by criminal gangs. Paedophile networks, for example, were using encryption to protect material on computers. The home office said phone tapping enabled customs officers to seize 1.25 tonnes of class A drugs during a recent 12-month period.
Who will authorise warrants for surveillance?
While the bill says that warrants for intercepting communications would still be signed by cabinet ministers, authorisation for other forms of surveillance would be given by senior police officers or even local authority officials. The bill sets up the post of covert investigations commissioner to monitor the issuing of warrants and a complaints tribunal.
What do civil liberties groups say?
<A
HREF="http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/" TARGET="_NEW">Liberty, the civil rights group, says the
European court of human rights has always emphasised the
importance of prior judicial sanction for warrants rather than
the authorisation by a politician or police officer. In their
current form, powers to recover encryption keys risk reversing
the burden of proof, it says, but overall it welcomes efforts to
introduce a consistent regulatory framework. Other groups are
more critical. Caspar Bowden, from the <A
HREF="http://www.fipr.org/ecommpr.html/" TARGET="_NEW">
foundation for information policy research, said the law as
drafted was "impossible" and accused the government of ignoring
all the advice and lobbying it had received from the net
community over the past year.
What is the situation in the US?
The US equivalent to the British bill is the <A
HREF="http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1999/September/408jmd.htm/"
TARGET="_NEW"> communications assistance for law enforcement
act, which regulates electronic surveillance. The FBI has
been pressing for more surveillance powers which civil rights
group say exceed the 1994 law. Last year, the <A
HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/" TARGET="_NEW">
federal communications commission granted further
surveillance capabilities requested by the FBI. The extra power
will allow police and other authorities armed with a court order
to obtain a mobile phone user's location at the beginning and
end of a call. The FBI will also be able to listen to
conversations between all parties to a conference call on
mobile and landline phones, even if some are no longer talking
to the target of the court-authorised wiretap.
