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Fwd: [ISN] E-mail snooping will create police state, guru warns




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On 06.07.00 at 01:05 William Knowles <wk@C4I.ORG> wrote:

>http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/07/06/timpolpol02005.html
>
>July 6th 2000
>
>BY MELISSA KITE, POLITICAL REPORTER
>
>THE world's leading Internet watchdog warned Tony Blair yesterday that
>his plans to give police powers to intercept private e-mails would
>turn Britain into a police state.
>
>Esther Dyson, who advises President Clinton and heads an international
>agency charged with setting policy for the Internet, urged ministers
>to abandon the Regula tion of Investigatory Powers Bill.
>
>The American businesswoman said the legislation was tantamount to
>passing a law forcing people to keep their living room curtains open.
>She told The Times at an Anglo-American enterprise conference in
>London attended by Gordon Brown, John Prescott, and Stephen Byers:
>"The UK is not uniquely clueless on this. This is what governments do,
>they control things.
>
>"But the Government needs to have the courage and the faith to leave
>people alone."
>
>Ms Dyson, who is chairman of the venture capitalist group EDventure
>Holdings, said: "You don't want a police state. Crime is crime, but
>that doesn't mean you can have a law making everyone keep their
>curtains up to help the police."
>
>The former Wall Street analyst said she was relieved that the Bill had
>run into opposition in the House of Lords. Ministers last week rushed
>out a series of amendments that water down some of the proposals after
>Liberal Democrat and Tory peers threatened to throw out the Bill.
>
>Concessions including tighter definitions of the information police
>can obtain without a warrant from the Home Secretary, and when they
>can demand the handover of decryption keys to allow the deciphering of
>encoded internet files.
>
>But the Government shows no sign of backing down from the main
>proposals which will give the security forces access to e-mails. All
>companies that provide Internet services would be forced to install
>expensive "black boxes" that would allow the security forces to
>monitor e-mail traffic.
>
>Minister say the Bill will help the police and MI5 to combat organised
>crime and terrorism but a powerful alliance of civil liberties groups,
>Internet companies and peers have protested that it would impose
>unfair costs on industry and risk abuse of privacy rights. MPs who
>believe the Bill contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights
>are threatening to mount a further rebellion when it returns to the
>Commons.
>
>Regarded in the US as the doyenne of cyberspace, Ms Dyson is chairman
>of Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,
>which sets policy for the Net's core infrastructure. She is listed by
>Fortune Magazine as one of America's 50 most powerful women.
>
>Ms Dyson also dismissed claims that US businesses were worried about
>Britain joining the euro. She believed that Americans regarded it as
>inevitable that Britain would join eventually.
>
>"Americans take it for granted. American business is going to say 'the
>simpler you make it the better'.
>
>"Fundamentally it is more efficient, so long as it is on the right
>terms. So, on balance, go ahead and do the euro. It is cute to have
>the British pound, it is quaint. But Britain has more hope if it joins
>them and fights for what it wants: don't stand on the sidelines."
>
>
>*-------------------------------------------------*
>"Communications without intelligence is noise;
>Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
>Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
>---------------------------------------------------
>C4I Secure Solutions             http://www.c4i.org
>*-------------------------------------------------*
>
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