Investigatory Powers Bill passes through Commons after Labour backs Tory spy law
arstechnica.co.uk
arstechnica.co.uk
The UK Government loves making supposed legal rules for what is essentially a no-holds-barred snoop-fest. Any legislation which would limit what are, in effect, unrestrained powers, are neutered. e.g. The Data Protection Act has blanket exclusions for "prevention and detection of crime" (handy for snooping employers too!) and the Protection From Harassment Act specifically permits law enforcement bodies to harass people without the ability of people to seek redress [that bill itself was initially a device created for Huntingdon Life Sciences to have a way to deal with animal rights protesters (which was a real problem - no matter where you sit on that issue); it's since been usefully pivoted by those being harassed by debt collectors to turn the tables and gain compensation, so it's not all bad.[1]).
This new law will do nothing to protect UK residents, nor anyone unfortunate enough to have any data transiting UK routing nodes, where their data is recorded by bulk surveillance.
The pretense that something is being improved or balances and safeguards of peoples liberty are somehow being created, is insulting.
Which is roughly equivalent to giving a terminal patient aspirin and bragging you cured their headache (the patient being the unions).
The law will still require ISPs to log every website visited by every UK internet user for a year, and allow police and intelligence officers to interrogate this data without a warrant.
Meanwhile the security and intelligence agencies will be allowed to continue their bulk intercepts and collection of bulk communications data (i.e. collecting everything, whether you're an MP, a doctor, a lawyer, a trade unionist, etc.)
Of course there's nothing wrong with this because the intelligence agencies are trustworthy institutions who wouldn't do anything unlawful... [1] [2]
[1] https://www.privacyinternational.org/node/482 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/06/gchq-mass-in...
The text runs to hundreds of pages and has had thousands of amendments considered and many of them applied since the early days. A lot of MPs spoke in favour of it and then voted for it yesterday despite expressing significant reservations in the past.
On the other hand, there certainly are still provisions for various kinds of bulk surveillance and there is still a mention of internet connection records. Some MPs did indicate that they would be voting against it because of concerns they still have about these kinds of areas.
There seems to have been remarkably little coverage of this in the UK media so far (it's almost wall-to-wall EU referendum flamebait at the moment) and I've yet to see any robust legal analysis of how much things have shifted in the more controversial areas and how much the various checks and balances that have been incorporated are actually worth.
If it really is true that sledgehammers like bulk surveillance would still be used routinely under the current provisions in the bill then it's very disappointing that it has got through, but I'd like to see some detailed analysis from experts who've been following the development and understand the implications of the legal wording.
I read the relevant sections 10 times over but until this is tested in court we don't know. I don't want our company to be the test balloon though, so I'm hoping a larger company steps up and challenges some of the provisions.
Of course the "internet connection record" retention is really sad. Right now the use cases are very specific but I'm sure new use cases will be found soon with the usual reasoning (terrorists, etc)
We don't really have a choice. We work in ecommerce. Can't continue in those conditions.
It's fine - we'll live off British values.
Compared to what the current Conservative government is doing, I feel the Lib Dems did a pretty good job of tempering their ambitions, without bringing the entire system to a standstill (which I do not believe for a second to be a good idea).
Nick Clegg clearly pulled back on tuition fees to get a referendum on AV which in hindsight he probably wishes he hadn't done and that then set the tone for media portrayal over the following 4 years.
Any liberal who says they "sold-out" during the coalition only need to look at current Tory policy to realise that the LDs did an excellent job pulling the Tories back. I voted Lib Dem in the last two elections FWIW.
For example, the LibDem manifesto for 2010 promised to "Switch traffic from road to rail by investing in local rail improvements, such as opening closed rail lines and adding extra tracks, paid for by cutting the major roads budget." [1]
What actually happened to the major roads budget? Well, come 2013, the coalition was embarking upon a massive programme of road-building, proudly trumpeted by Danny Alexander (LibDem chief secretary to the Treasury) as "the greatest investment in our roads since the 1970s". [2] That's not compromise, that's a 180° U-turn on your manifesto commitments. Meanwhile, actual rail reopenings were happening in Scotland thanks to the SNP, and in Wales thanks to Labour, but not in England.
So, no thank you. I had voted LibDem in 2012 and at every general election since the age of 18. Not in 2015 and not again.
[1] http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge10/man/parties/li...
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-by-chief-secre...
They would have done a better job by supporting and conditioning a minority government. Let Tories get all the flak while you bring home electoral victories. Instead, they got all the flak, didn't significantly change anything (they resisted or delayed a few "reforms" like this bill, which will now go through), U-turned on all their manifesto promises (which, one suspects, the leadership only endured because of their grassroots activists and not because they believed in any of them) and made themselves unelectable.
"A pretty good job" sounds a lot like "a heck of a job"...
They made a terrible job of promoting their role and position (PR referendum, tuition fees etc) and the allowed the Tories to use them as the fall guy for a remarkable range of things. The PR referendum should have been an eeasy sell for them considering the UK is one of the least representative democracies on the planet. On tuition fees, making huge public commitments, signing oversized documents for the cameras, then rowing back because reasons can be a textbook case of how not to do it for decades.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interception_Modernisation_P...
Thatcher even said that there was "nothing to be afraid about" (paraphrasing slightly) over Blair's government. The Labour Party has not been a party of labour and work for a very long while, rather a typical liberal party as seen in the two-party systems of North America. One cannot claim to be part of a worker's party if he supports mass immigration to replace nationals for cheaper work and a welfare bureaucracy that pays more for slacking than working.
The decision to support the barely amended IPB is upsetting and a disgrace to the Labour Party. I would have hoped that Jeremy Corbyn would get the party to oppose the British surveillance state, consistent with his principles on war, human rights and so on and so on.
A liberal bill would minimise the state's authority to do this sort of thing.
aka Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Joe Lieberman... total hawks on civil rights (except on '60s causes like abortion and black voting, which most sane people already take for granted), but still very much "liberals" in the American sense.
In the European sense, "liberals" are also pretty much "liberalists", aka freetraders/pro-business with a right-wing approach to civil liberties and immigration.
The meaning of liberal issues as being about individual-rights and protection-from-state is rapidly disappearing. I guess it's been subsumed in the "libertarian" hodgepodge.
Could be another reason for Scotland to secede from the UK, or at least another item to add to the 'Pros' column.
I highly doubt MI6 or GCHQ are concerned with the rights of foreign citizens, were Scotland to secede.