Guardian Online, Duncan Campbell Reports

[Yaman Akdeniz]

Guardian Online, 30 April, 1998
This week, the Government rushed out its long-awaited guidelines for
privacy online. Duncan Campbell reports

The full article is in the Guardian's web site.

Here are some interesting bits of Campbell's article. I have not 
posted the full article here fore copyright reasons.

Yaman

But plans to allow search warrants to be extended to the total
contents of everyone's computer files and e-mail, however private,
have raised worries. 

..................

"This would be a monumental advance on government rights to invade
privacy," said leading civil rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC.
"It's like invading the mind." A "judicial warrant," he added, "can
come from a lay justice or a circuit judge whom the police select.
It's a classic case of Neanderthal thinking _ no safeguard at all." 

...................

Government critics say that this is a betrayal of pre-election
undertakings that New Labour would not accept the US requirement "to
be able to swoop down on any encrypted message at will and unscramble
it". As Zimmermann put it, after reviewing the government statement:
"In principle it's voluntary; but, de facto, it's compulsory.  This is
exactly what so many of us in the US have worked very hard to stop." 

.......

Critics such as Robertson remain unconvinced of the need for new laws.
"Do they really think that major criminals go home and log their
crimes on the Internet in a computer diary?" 

[Duncan Campbell is a freelance writer and broadcaster, and is not the
Guardian correspondent of the same name] 30 April 1998

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Yaman Akdeniz <lawya@leeds.ac.uk>
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) at:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/yaman.htm

Read CR&CL (UK) Report, 'Who Watches the Watchmen'
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/watchmen.htm
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