
UK’s Investigatory Powers Act is set to expand - samizdis
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/23/uk_snoopers_charter_sequel/
======
samizdis
> 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.

~~~
digikazi
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 s __t 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!

~~~
tomatocracy
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".

~~~
CodeGlitch
Another Brit here:

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.

~~~
confounded
> _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?

~~~
CodeGlitch
> 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.

------
choeger
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.

~~~
londons_explore
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.

~~~
choeger
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.

------
Hoasi
What's the official justification behind this? First, it was terrorism, then
maybe a pandemic, what's next?

It was all so predictable, and yet so little has been done to prevent this.

Apathy is a powerful tool, how depressing.

What would be some practical solutions since democracy doesn't seem to prevent
this from happening?

~~~
JoeSmithson
The justification is linked prominently in TFA
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2020/9780111195499/pdfs/...](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2020/9780111195499/pdfs/ukdsiod_9780111195499_en.pdf)

~~~
thombat
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:

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3333366/Half-of-
coun...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3333366/Half-of-councils-use-
anti-terror-laws-to-spy-on-bin-crimes.html)

~~~
DanBC
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.

~~~
jen20
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.

------
jstanley
Ironically:

> 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)

------
JoeSmithson
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

~~~
8957a7e865c41c
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.

~~~
dTal
Would you care to expand on exactly why you perceive that to be an inaccurate
description?

~~~
DanBC
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.

~~~
kwhitefoot
I don't want people reading the metadata either.

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.

------
White_Wolf
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 ?

~~~
sterlind
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.

------
monkeynotes
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.

~~~
BTinfinity
I agree with the second part of your comment, but the opt in for adult
websites was dropped over fears it wouldn't be effective. [1]

[1]
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50073102](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50073102)

~~~
jen20
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.

------
8957a7e865c41c
>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].

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-
commu...](https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-
communications-data-authorisations)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Leveson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Leveson)

[3]
[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/section/62/enac...](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/section/62/enacted)

~~~
hlandau
Who do you represent?

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?

~~~
JoeSmithson
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

~~~
hlandau
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.

------
motohagiography
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.

------
DanBC
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.

------
dataduck
Does anyone know of a co-ordinated political opposition to RIPA, and how to
support it?

------
LatteLazy
I'm not normally a libertarian but... There is nothing quite so permanent as
temporary government powers.

~~~
Cthulhu_
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.

~~~
easytiger
> 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.

Political hatchery 101

------
Havoc
Full steam ahead to a brave new world.

No guessing involved either thanks to China

------
seemslegit
Good thing this is being tried first in a nation that is pretty much
guaranteed to sit and take it.

~~~
Cthulhu_
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.

