
Companies to face criminal offence if they tip off U.K. users about snooping - snowy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/12051443/Twitter-and-others-to-face-criminal-offence-if-they-tip-off-users-about-snooping-requests.html
======
tobbyb
There are many who not only remain unconcerned but often seek to diminish or
dismiss concern as hyperbole or exaggerated, often by pointing to the current
status quo.

No one is interested in you the individual, but they are certainly interested
in building the capability to track all individuals and preempt anything that
threatens any entrenched status quo.

We are not currently a police state but we are certainly building the
capability and the cultural language to justify it. The moral high ground and
the entire framework of values that powered it have shown to be near
meaningless by the alarming ease with which they have been discarded in favour
of the language of security and paranoia. Everyone is safe in a cage. It will
be naive to believe in the context of how modern states operate that a cluster
of extreme right wing medievalists in the ME are bringing on this state of
affairs, the bulk and most powerful of whom are paradoxically our best friends
in the region.

Surveillance states are not a on/off thing, you don't suddenly wake one day to
a surveillance state. These capabilities take time to build, but once the
infrastructure is in place it will inevitably get used.

In this case we can see all the pieces being put in place methodically with
language that makes George Orwell look astonishingly prescient. And its the
self absorption of this generation who have inherited and enjoyed a relatively
'free' and equal state with 'hope for improvement' but are going to willfully
pass on something more ominous.

~~~
s986s
Im in the pessimistic group. What can an average person do?

\- blow a whistle and be on the run like snowden?

\- put their name on a petition which also acts as a watch list?

\- publicly protest and hoping to be covered by mainstream media which
basically means quitting their job abd taking a < 10% risk of success

\- start a viral shame campaign which both google abd facebook have attempted
multiple times only to have cisa pass and this sort pf thing to become the
"status quot"

Really, what is there to do but watch the future unfold into dystopia? Really,
tell me? In reality we are tools turning the coorperate machine. Individuals
freedom is not more important the economic evolution. Online communities are
unaminously against evil but in reality, they are made up of fattened happy
pigs that do very little but talk to one another and hope to get their oen
lives a little more perfect.

Governments have been corrupt for more than a mellenia. Recent attempts at
being humane should be taken with a grain of salt

~~~
CM30
The simple answer is stop being concerned with your own lifestyle and do
what's right, consequences be damned. Edward Snowden at least had the guts to
throw his entire life away to bring attention to something he thought was
morally wrong.

The lack of that sort of courage is why the world is going to hell. Today's
attitudes of prioritising personal 'comfort' over what's right is why this
sort of crap is being allowed to happen.

The best solution for a company in this situation (especially a large one) is
to blow the whistle to the media and watch the fallout. Oh sure, you might not
come out alright, but the media and internet reaction would certainly be
fierce, and the reputation of any government involved would go to hell
extremely quickly.

More the reputation goes, the harder it is to stay 'legitimate' and keep in
power. Same thing goes for companies trying to shut down smaller ones and
individuals through threats.

~~~
tobbyb
Given the extreme zeal for liberty and freedom espoused by the tech crowd in
the early 90's its more than sad, no a complete tragedy that there is just one
Snowden today and hundreds of thousands of others who 'toil' away silently
actively building this.

Here was your turn to do your bit, something meaningful and what we get
instead is a complete co-option into the system. No activism, no protest, very
few whistle blowers, especially since you of all other groups would be alert
to the possibilities, where is the movement? There has been real sacrifice and
sustained, persistent struggle to get here, values have a cost to the
individual, if one balks if there is a cost then its just empty words and mass
delusion.

And thus there is no shame, no movement, no activism, no code of conduct, no
moral pressure to dissociate with these kind of activities or to call out all
these people in any technology fora, even today when its out in the open.

And it's just not their failing. Modern populations seem to be completely
unequal to any kind of meaningful activism and change. There is such a
debilitating focus on individualism, and the completely irrelevance of wider
community and other interests that the only real thing left is self interest
and self interest has no 'values' or value, beyond expediency and survival.

~~~
vigvhcgh
People who call out such get banned in places like HN.

An open discussion of government corruption and oppression is essentially
impossible here.

------
gremlinsinc
This is absolutely retarded.. If I were apple, google, and facebook, and
twitter - companies that ARE nations unto themselves in terms of user reach, I
would start some sort of embargo, countries that enforce these kind of rules,
simply ban all traffic from the country. Imagine the social upheaval and
political capital the UK would lose if facebook, google, twitter, apple, bing,
etc...all were no longer accessible. No more funny cat videos on youtube or
facebook? Brits would go crazy, and get angry, and the politicians who made
the rules, would get outted pretty darn fast and never be elected again.

~~~
chatmasta
Multiple replacements for each company would appear within 24 hours. One would
spread virally and gain an initial base of users, then press, and within a few
months it would be in a dominant market position filling the void left by the
American company it replaced.

This is exactly what happened in China when Google left - Baidu exploded in
popularity and now dominates the market so completely that it would be nearly
impossible for Google to unseat it.

The Chinese government does this on purpose to facilitate the growth of its
own domestic companies. The Great Firewall serves as much of an economic
purpose as a political one. By degrading service quality of foreign companies,
it opens space in the market for domestic companies to establish themselves
and gain market share. It would be impossible for any one of those companies
to bootstrap its initial userbase if a giant American corporation already
cornered its market.

~~~
jacquesm
I don't think you'll be replacing Apple or Google overnight, Twitter and
Facebook only work because of the network effects, a 'facebook or twitter for
the UK' would fly just about as good as a lead balloon.

~~~
chatmasta
Tell that to tencent, weibo, baidu, youku...

~~~
jacquesm
They did not spring up 'overnight'.

~~~
andy_ppp
They are also forced upon the population by the state and China speaks a
different language than English.

------
pjc50
There's some of this present already in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers
Act from the early 2000s. And the all-pervasive Official Secrets Act. Those of
us who are old enough to remember the bizarre half-censorship of Gerry Adams
on TV know that free speech has never had an overriding legal status in the
UK.

------
PaulAJ
So the security services can demand information and order the fact kept secret
in perpetuity, with no appeal. How very reassuring.

------
michaelfeathers
If this goes through Warrant Canaries will become much more popular.

~~~
asuffield
I was actually thinking that this proposed law is precisely how you "solve"
the warrant canary "problem". No need to order anybody to make false
statements - but if you take the canary down, you've broken the law, and you
created this problem for yourself.

~~~
teddyh
I thought the idea of a warrant canary was that it had to be an explicit
statement you make, multiple times, so that when you _cease_ making the
statements, it would mean something. I.e. a warrant canary would not be
something you would actively “take down”, it would be a thing which you _stop_
doing.

~~~
Pitarou
The warrant canary idea was bullshit from the start.

If _not_ reissuing a warrant canary will let a company's customers know that
they are under surveillance, the proposed law will require that company to
publish the warrant canary. It's a simple as that. And it is perfectly
possible to prosecute someone for "acts of omission". As Wikipedia puts it:

> In the criminal law, an omission, or failure to act, will constitute an
> actus reus (Latin for "guilty act") and give rise to liability only when the
> law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty.

~~~
teddyh
The warrant canary idea assumes that the law can never compel anyone to _make
a false statement_. Do you have anything to suggest that this is false?

~~~
asuffield
You weren't compelled to set up a warrant canary in the first place, so I'm
not sure why this is relevant. You did it to yourself.

Why do you expect a court to experience sympathy about the fact that you set
out to break the law (by communicating this information that you are forbidden
to communicate) and set yourself up so that you have to choose between making
a false statement or going to jail?

~~~
teddyh
You seem to be arguing against the very concept of a warrant canary, claiming
that it is somehow obviously an unworkable concept, without giving any
specific references. Despite this, others seem to be using warrant canaries.
What do you know that they don’t? Are those using warrant canaries simply
delusional? You have to make a more solid argument for your point than simple
assertions.

Also, your argument style is very aggressive, adressing me personally, saying
“ _You did it to yourself._ ”, despite the fact that I have not claimed to
have published a warrant canary.

~~~
asuffield
> What do you know that they don’t?

I know that a law has been proposed which would effectively make them illegal.

> Despite this, others seem to be using warrant canaries.

I believe that the source of your confusion is that we are presently
discussing a proposed law which may come into effect in the future, while you
are examining the past when that law was not in effect.

~~~
teddyh
No, you said “ _The warrant canary idea was bullshit from the start._ ” – i.e.
you think that warrant canaries were _never_ viable.

~~~
Pitarou
No, it was me who said that.

If I understand you correctly, your main points are:

1\. The law can never compel you to make a false statement.

2\. Lots of firms are doing it, and they probably know what they're doing.

For point 1, if you can show me a credible legal authority arguing that
British law can never, under any circumstances, compel a person to lie, I'll
accept that I was wrong, and I'll thank you for teaching me something new this
day.

But rather than do that, you've suggested that I should try to _disprove_ your
claim. Well, I admit that I can't offer a rigorous disproof, but that's to be
expected: disproof is always hard. (Can you disprove the existence of
sasquatches?)

So let's put that aside, at least until a real lawyer gets involved, and move
on to point 2.

And for 2, I don't think you'd say that if you'd seen as much legal bullshit
in your time as I have.

Do you remember, back in the 90s, envelopes that said, "By opening this
envelope, you agree to the Terms & Conditions enclosed." Or more recently,
have you seen online services whose Terms & Conditions say something like, "We
can change these Terms & Conditions at any time, without telling you." They're
both obvious bullshit, and yet in both cases lawyers kept pushing them onto
their clients until a court ruled against the practices.

So I believe that the warrant canary is another piece of obvious bullshit,
which will die a quick death when a court examines it. In fact, it's possible
that a court already HAS ruled against the idea, but we just don't know about
it. Or, to put it another way, I think there's every chance that some of the
warrant canaries we are seeing published now are lies. That would certainly
explain why we've yet to see the non-renewal of a warrant canary!

~~~
teddyh
Sorry about the mistaken attribution.

1\. I actually never claimed anything about what the law says, I said the the
concept of a warrant canary _assumes_ that the law cannot do a particular
thing.

2\. I thought that the types of organizations which would use a warrant canary
would be slightly more resistant to legal superstitions and overreach.

I.e. my answer to number 2 above led me to begin with the proposition that
warrant canaries were probably legal, and therefore I wanted a disproof. Also,
a disproof should in theory be easy; a single example where the law can compel
anyone to make a false statement would suffice. It would be wholly impractical
for me to try to prove that there are no such rules anywhere in the law, and I
am not a lawyer, so I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to.

~~~
Pitarou
I take your point about disproof -- my logic was faulty -- and I can't think
of an example where the law compels someone to lie. Google hasn't found me
any, either.

I also checked canarywatch.org and noticed that Adobe have a warrant canary
and, yes, I'd like to believe that Adobe's lawyers know what they're doing.

And after giving this some thought, I think you've persuaded me, but with one
important caveat: it's different in Britain. American warrant canaries might
work, but British ones are bullshit.

It's all about freedom of speech. As far as I can tell, all the legal theories
about compelled speech come down to this: freedom of speech implies freedom
from compelled speech. But in the UK there is no constitutional guarantee of
freedom of speech so, while I'm not aware of any law compelling people to lie,
neither am I aware of there being anything to prevent such a law from
existing.

Thanks for the interesting discussion. I've learned something today. :)

------
marcoperaza
Imagine how useful a wiretap would be if the phone company immediately
notified the target. I'm not sure there's anything unreasonable about this
amendment. Something similar is probably already the case for telephone and
postal surveillance, and this was just a previous oversight in the law.

I think there's a case for having a time-limit after which the surveillance
must be disclosed, unless a judge thinks there's a very good reason not to for
a specific case. I believe that's how this works in the US. Unfortunately, the
UK's version of surveillance oversight is typically ministerial oversight,
which is not very encouraging.

~~~
CamperBob2
_Imagine how useful a wiretap would be if the phone company immediately
notified the target._

No one would have a problem with this if there were even the vaguest semblance
of due process. There isn't.

------
s279
Would a company making an assertion that it wasn't being snooped on before
they were actually snooped be guilty of fraud after the fact has changed?
Given they can't say they are not being snooped on...

------
dang
Url changed from [http://www.techspot.com/news/63292-tech-companies-face-
crimi...](http://www.techspot.com/news/63292-tech-companies-face-criminal-
charges-if-they-notify.html)? to what appears to be a more substantive
article.

------
cmurf
The U.K. is a constitutional monarchy. There is no concept of "we the people"
bottom up delegation of power to form a government; it's top down, the people
are subjects. That members of parliament are elected means the monarch's power
is limited, rather than the source of the power of government and its
authority coming from the people. So it's a different system than in the U.S.,
so when talking about traditional values don't assume western democracies are
all really pretty much the same thing. There are important differences. And in
this case, I expect the vast majority of British will have no problem with
this kind of surveillance.

However, the company asserting it's not the surveillance branch of the
government where it does business, is legitimate. Whether it'll make any
difference is a separate question.

~~~
clouddrover
No, there are hardly any British subjects any more (if any left at all). They
have become citizens. See both Wikipedia and the UK government's website for a
history of the changes to laws around British citizenship and nationality.

[https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-
nationality/overview](https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-
nationality/overview)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_subject](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_subject)

~~~
cmurf
Yes these days legally they are citizens not subjects, but because of history,
the connotation of the relationship with the state is one of a subject.

Whereas from the outset there was a concept of citizens in the U.S. under the
written constitutions (both of them).

~~~
clouddrover
I'd say that because of history the connotation of the relationship with the
state has become the exact opposite and the rule of law has been established.
It started to change with Magna Carta:

[https://www.runnymede.gov.uk/magnacarta](https://www.runnymede.gov.uk/magnacarta)

[https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/medieval/magna...](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/medieval/magna-
carta/)

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Edw1cc1929/25/9/contents](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Edw1cc1929/25/9/contents)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta)

