(Fwd) Interception of UK citizens tele-traffic w/o warrant

["Axel H Horns" <horns@t-online.de>]

[Interessant. Ross schreibt also, dass beim Boersengang der British 
Telecom (BT) im Boersenprospekt ausdruecklich ein Vermerk gwesen sei, 
der "geheime Abkommen" mit HMG ueber Abhoerangelegenheiten betrifft. 
Waere sowas in DE auch denkbar? Ich vermute, dass hier (zumindest in 
der Theorie) das TKG dagagen steht. Hat jemand damals die 
Boersenprospekte beim IPO der DTAG genau gelesen?            --AHH]  

------- Forwarded message follows -------
To:             	ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Subject:        	Interception of UK citizens tele-traffic w/o warrant
Date sent:      	Sat, 06 May 2000 13:07:01 +0100
From:           	Ross Anderson <Ross.Anderson@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Send reply to:  	ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk


Jack Straw:

> What we have achieved until now in terms of making this
> country a safer one has been achieved significantly through
> the voluntary co-operation of the public telecommunications
> operators  

A couple of thoughts come to mind.

(1) When BT went public, there was a clause in the prospectus about
the existence of secret agreements with the government about
interception. Why would these be necessary, if warranted interception
was all that was going on?

(2) I recall a miscarriage-of-justice case in the North East of
England where the police went to extraordinary lengths to support the
view which a certain phone company took of events. The facts as I
recall them were that a random citizen had his phone tapped by a drug
dealer who lived opposite and who made a large number of calls on his
account to the payphones where his runners used to hang out. Not only
did the phone company refuse to give the victim his money back, but
had him charged with making menacing phone calls, or something like
that. It was the telecomms equivalent of the Munden case. List members
from area will no doubt recall more.

The phone company claimed, and the police supported the view, that
no-one but a duly warranted law enforcement agency could tap a phone.
This is utter rubbish. In Cambridge 20 years ago, when long distance
phone calls cost a fortune, overseas students would often hack a phone
line to call home. And abuse of third party phone services was a
standard way in the mid-1990's for bad guys to escape police
surveillance. Hey, even Soctland Yard got their PBX hacked!

Now why would a police force side with a phone company against a crime
victim, even when the phone company's story is totally implausible, if
there wasn't some quid pro quo?

Returning now to the specific case of BT, how much do they do, in
addition to the overtly required (i.e., warranted) services, and those
in the secret agreement whose existence was disclosed at their IPO?

Ross

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