Salon Are British bobbies reading your e-mail?
"Americans are used to thinking of Britain as the source from which most of the principles of our democracy flow, a country for which these principles are so innate it doesn't even need a written Constitution. The reality is increasingly different.

Compare and contrast. On July 14, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that the FBI was using an Internet wiretapping system known as Carnivore to intercept and access e-mail. By July 24, FBI assistant director Donald Kerr was explaining Carnivore to Congress. By Aug. 15, a federal appeals court had ruled, in response to a suit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center and others, that law enforcement officers must get a Fourth Amendment search warrant before they can have access to "packets from which call information has not been stripped." The ruling, it seems, makes Carnivore illegal. In Britain, on the other hand, on July 28 the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIP) became law, requiring all Internet service providers to install and maintain interception equipment for the benefit of law enforcement. Yes, agents will have to get a warrant. But that warrant will be issued by the politician at the head of the Home Office (Britain's equivalent to the Justice Department), not by a judge. "

redux [07.19.00]
The New York Times British Authorities May Get Wide Power to Decode E-Mail
[requires 'free' registration]
"As the Clinton administration formally enters the debate about law enforcement surveillance in cyberspace, the British government is about to enact a law that would give the authorities here broad powers to intercept and decode e-mail messages and other communications between companies, organizations and individuals.

The measure, which goes further than the American plan unveiled on Monday in Washington, would make Britain the only Western democracy where the government could require anyone using the Internet to turn over the keys to decoding e-mails messages and other data."

redux [07.11.00]
MSNBC FBI’s system to covertly search e-mail raises privacy, legal issues
"The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is using a superfast system called Carnivore to covertly search e-mails for messages from criminal suspects."

"Word of the Carnivore system has disturbed many in the Internet industry because, when deployed, it must be hooked directly into Internet service providers’ computer networks. That would give the government, at leasttheoretically, the ability to eavesdrop on all customers’ digital communications, from e-mail to online banking and Web surfing.

The system also troubles some Internet service providers, who are loath to see outside software plugged into their systems. In many cases, the FBI keeps the secret Carnivore computer system in a locked cage on theprovider’s premises, with agents making daily visits to retrieve the data captured from the provider’s network. But legal challenges to the use of Carnivore are few, and judges’ rulings remain sealed because of the secretive nature of the investigations."

Dan Gillmor Draconian cyber-surveillance near in Britain
"BRITAIN'S Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has been talking up the Internet and technology, vowing to bring the United Kingdom firmly into the emerging digital economy and culture. Yet despite real progress toward this worthy goal, Blair's Labor government is undermining its promise with proposals for pervasive, intrusive cyber-surveillance -- quite possibly the most Draconian in the Western world.

The legislation is called the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill, or RIP, and its passage in Parliament may be imminent. Growing recognition of the bill's potentially disastrous impact has triggered some second thoughts. But the government is pressing ahead, and foes of the legislation say their chances of heading it off remain, at best, 50-50."

"Internet service providers don't like the bill. Some, but not all, would be required to install equipment allowing the government to tap communications in something close to real time. The government hasn't explained very well why a criminal with even half a brain would use such an ISP instead of a provider that wasn't part of the surveillance network.

One ISP told the Independent newspaper that it was exploring a move offshore if the bill passes. Its clients include unions and activist non-governmental organizations that have a rational concern of unbridled government power."

Salon Can a labeling system protect your privacy?
"P3P, the new Internet privacy protocol unveiled last month by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), has been both lauded as the answer to everyone's privacy worries and castigated as a Trojan horse that will divert public attention from real problems. The truth is, it's neither. It's merely a potentially nifty tool that might help ensure privacy in cyberspace -- if the government gets its act together.

"But P3P isn't technology, it's politics. The Clinton administration and companies such as Microsoft are all set to use P3P as the latest excuse to promote their campaign of "industry self-regulation" and delay meaningful legislation on Internet privacy."

"Ultimately, though, Americans shouldn't be put in the position of having to decide whether or not they want to give up their privacy in order to partake in the pleasure of viewing pages on the Internet: We should have base-level privacy protections in law. We do this in other areas, such as food, drugs and the environment. Likewise, there should be certain privacy guarantees that are fundamental to our society; privacy guarantees such as the right to see information that a company has collected on you and the right to have erroneous information expunged.

P3P can't create these rights and it can't enforce them. But P3P will make it easier to cut through the legalese and tell the difference between Web sites that are truly committed to protecting privacy and those that are information sharks -- provided, of course, that both kinds of Web sites post P3P policies that are comprehensive and accurate. And, of course, there's a fat chance of that happening without meaningful legislation."