UK delays 'snooper's charter'

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Tue Jun 18 08:08:41 EDT 2002


http://europe.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/06/17/uk.snoop/index.html

 
UK delays 'snooper's charter'

LONDON, England --The UK government has delayed plans to push through what
had been attacked by the British media as a "snooper's charter" to allow
officials to demand access to phone and e-mail records.

Members of parliament had been due on Tuesday to debate a draft order that
would have enabled seven British government departments, as well as local
authorities and other public bodies, access to communications data.

But the UK Home Office said the debate had now been postponed due to
"parliamentary procedures." No alternative date has yet been set.

The disclosure came after the Conservative opposition warned that it would
be prepared to oppose the draft order when it came to the upper chamber,
the House of Lords, if Labour used its majority to push it through the
Commons.

With the Liberal Democrats and some independent peers thought to be opposed
to the measure, the government could have been defeated in the upper
chamber.

The draft order sought to extend the surveillance powers under the
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which are currently restricted
to the police, the intelligence agencies, Customs and Excise and the Inland
Revenue.

The Government departments which would have been covered under the extended
powers include Health, Trade and Industry, Transport, the Home Office, the
Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs.

The order would also have covered every local council, and would have
extended to a range of bodies from fire authorities to the Food Standards
Agency.

The UK government said the powers were necessary to prevent serious crime,
but had been strongly criticise by civil liberties groups.

The Conservative opposition leader in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde, said the
government should use the delay now to re-think its approach.

"This will give the government time to re-think and hopefully to withdraw
the most illiberal and intrusive of these measures," he said.

"We support the war on terrorism. We oppose district councils and quangos
being given power to survey private communications. Surely even this
distressingly authoritarian government can see the difference."

Home Office minister Bob Ainsworth defended the measure, which he said was
intended to create a proper statutory framework, setting out the
circumstances in which public bodies could access information.

 
 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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