UK: Council snoopers to get new powers to seize phone and email records - taxpayers get £50m bill

The Evening Standard (U.K.) ^ | August 13, 2008

[Stoat]

Council snoopers to get new powers to seize phone and email records - with taxpayers footing the £50m bill

Last updated at 15:11pm on 13.08.08

 

Tory concerns: Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve

Council snoopers will be given even greater powers to pry into our phone, email and internet records  -  landing the taxpayer with a bill of almost £50million.
 

Town halls, along with the police, security services, health authorities and other public bodies, will have access to ' communication' records of anyone suspected of involvement in even the most minor crime.
 

The powers, which stem from an EU directive supposedly designed to catch terrorists, will even allow police to track down those who have told friends they are planning to harm themselves.

But it will cost the taxpayer £46.58million over eight years to compensate mobile phone companies and internet firms for storing and providing the data.
 

Critics said the measure took Britain a step closer to becoming a surveillance state.
 

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'Yet again the Government have proved themselves unable to resist the temptation to take a power quite properly designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people in everyday circumstances.
 

'It is typical of this Government that they also intend to make the taxpayer pay extra for the privilege.'
 

 

The controversy centres on an EU directive passed in the aftermath of the July 7 terror attacks, in London, in 2005.
 

Britain said it was crucial for terrorism investigations that police and security services could access times, dates and recipients of a suspect's landline, mobile phone, email and internet communications.
 

 

 

 

A deadline was set for implementing the powers by March 2009. And yesterday the Home Office published proposals for how this will be done.

It is intending to give public bodies covered by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000  -  including local councils  -  the power to access communications data.
 

The rules will not be limited to detecting terrorism and serious crime  -  they will be applied to any offence.
 

Town halls can already request some of the data, and have used it to try to trace minor offenders.
 

But these rules will make it compulsory for phone and internet companies to hand over personal information from the previous 12 months.
 

At the moment, arrangements are largely voluntary. Public bodies will not be able to read emails nor listen to phone calls.
 

Examples given by the Government include someone who tells a friend by email, or via the internet, they are intending to harm themselves.
 

If contacted by the friend, the police would use their powers to locate a home address and visit the property.
 

Phil Booth, of the NO2ID campaign, said: 'No one would ever say that surveillance is not required for the most serious crimes and terrorism.
 

'But to extend such powers and make it so simple for any official to peek into your private affairs shows we are now entering into a database state.'
 

However, a Home Office spokesman defended the move. 'This data is a vital tool to investigations and intelligence gathering in support of national security and crime.'
 

It will 'enable UK law enforcement to benefit fully from historical communications data' and 'enhance our national security', he added.

[Stoat]

A few related FR threads:

'Big Brother' warning over Government database that records EVERY phone call and e-mail in Britain

Bluetooth Big Brother uses mobiles and laptops to track thousands of Britons (without their consent)

Now taxman gets the power to turn up unannounced to your home and demand to see tax records (U.K.)

Great Britain New super-cameras will mean no hiding place for drivers who smoke, eat or use a phone

Police hold DNA of 4.5m Britons - adding 1m to database over just 10 months

Big Brother Britain Government and councils to spy on ALL our phones

Great Britain 'Envirocrime' snoops paid £30,000 just to check your rubbish

 

Please say a prayer for the people of Great Britain

 

 

[bajabaja]

Looks like there is a growing market for programs that make emails anonymous and run browsers from a proxy address.

It’s technology and there is always a countermeasure. Brits shouldn’t have to put up with it, but they probably will.

Some will just pay for more privacy, until the government makes encryption and other evasive measures illegal.

[Stoat]

Isn’t it the case here in the USA that all companies providing encryption software are required by law to provide a key to law enforcement agencies? I seem to recall reading that at some point. If true, I would imagine that encryption would still be quite useful for protection from industrial espionage, but it seems of limited use against Government snooping.

[WayneS]

Someone please help me out here: What is the “Council”?

I am not familiar with that term.

[bajabaja]

Pretty sure you are right about that, under PGP (Pretty Good Privacy Standards). Not an expert. But then one can write one’s own encryption.

Yes, geeky. But then I likes my privacy.

[Stoat]

Someone please help me out here: What is the “Council”?

I am not familiar with that term.

Councils in Great Britain are essentially local Government bodies that manage the Governmental affairs of smaller towns and communities.....legendary for Socialist largess and the breathtaking waste of tax monies.....ask any Brit FReeper.

Someone please help me out here: What is the “Council”?

I am not familiar with that term.

[Nebr FAL owner]

Use the old fashioned method of pencil/paper transposition or substition cypher then computer encrypt. Do some research on how to use a “one time pad” in addition to the computer crypto-program.

[Pentagon Leatherneck]

Please join me in a moment of silence for (once) Great Britain, the former beacon of light regarding the rights of man.

TC

[Stoat]

Use the old fashioned method of pencil/paper transposition or substition cypher then computer encrypt. Do some research on how to use a “one time pad” in addition to the computer crypto-program.

Even MORE old-fashioned....Cockney Rhyming Slang was originally invented by criminals to prevent the police from understanding what they were talking about

BBC America - British American Dictionary

Cockney Rhyming Slang

Perhaps the most infamous of all the British slang, Cockney Rhyming Slang is a richly complicated, in-the-know type of language. It is said that slang was originally developed by the thieves of London, so that they could communicate without the bobbies understanding what they were saying.

And they were most definitely successful. With the familiar words showing up in unlikely places in a sentence, the uninitiated can only shake their head in bewilderment.

In Cockney Rhyming Slang, a word is represented by a phrase that ends in a rhyme. For example, the word mate rhymes with china plate. So the phrase china plate represents mate. However, in spoken slang, only the beginning of the phrase would remain. So the word china means mate. Simple right?

[WayneS]

Sort of like County Boards of Supervisors here in the U.S.?

[TKDietz]

“Town halls, along with the police, security services, health authorities and other public bodies, will have access to ‘communication’ records of anyone suspected of involvement in even the most minor crime.”

This is coming here too. They'll always say the snooping laws are to protect us against terrorists. Then the government will take a super expansive reading of the new laws and use them to snoop on all sorts of things that don't really have anything to do with terrorism. Some of these cases will make it to the higher courts, but of course they'll be ones involving criminal conduct. The higher courts will okay the government action because it was used to fight crime, drugs, whatever, and from that the government will take an even more expansive reading and push the envelope even further. Eventually the laws will be updated to codify what the courts already allow and of course expand government powers even further. The 4th Amendment will be further watered down. No government intrusion will be considered “unreasonable” because there is some “good” reason fro all of it. It will be for the children, to fight terrorism or drugs, whatever. The net effect will be that we lose just about all protection against unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed in the Constitution.

[Stoat]

Sort of like County Boards of Supervisors here in the U.S.?

I have the sense that the local Councils in the UK are considerably more micromanagement-focused than a typical County Board here in the USA.

As a random example, here's a section taken from the Derby council's page, which outlines things in a very basic and broad way:

Council, Government and Democracy Homepage

Derby is a unitary council which means it provides all local government services within the city boundaries. These include education, social services, highways and transportation, arts and cultural events, refuse collection and recycling, and parks.

Like all local councils, Derby is a democratic organisation with 51 councillors representing 17 wards. Council members are elected for four year terms. Elections take place three years out of every four, when a third of the Council is elected. The next fallow year with no election will be 2009

Currently the Council is composed of 14 Conservative members, 2 Independent members, 17 Labour members and 18 Liberal Democrat members.

The Council operates a Leader/Cabinet style of government with appointments being made to these positions by Council. The next Council Meeting will be held on 21 May 2008.

The Council’s policy framework and budget are set by Council but all executive decisions are taken by or on behalf of Cabinet. The councillors meet as a full council around every six weeks. A limited number of items of business, such as approving the level of council tax, must be considered by the full Council.

Individual planning and licensing decisions are non-executive matters and decisions are taken by separate committees of the Council.

***********************************************************

It may well be that different Councils have different parameters of operation and responsibility.

Here's a directory of local Councils in England, and you may well be able to find out more by comparing some of the different Councils in different parts of the country.

Local councils Directgov - Directories

[WayneS]

They lost me at “unitary”...