Jack Straw' View

[David Swarbrick]

In message <003b01bfe5b8$5322dc80$3e0a989e@eloka>, Owen Lewis
<oml@eloka.demon.co.uk> writes

>True. Traffic analysis is traffic analysis. Be it electronic messages,
>vehicles on motorways or persons in a shopping precinct, there is no reason,
>it seems to me, to think any one of these to be more unfair or intrusive on
>privacy than the other.

Traffic analysis is not a closely defined idea. An officer would not
need a warrant to follow a suspect about and to create a list of places
visited by him, including sex shops brothels red light areas, children
playgrounds and whatever. The limits to such activity are drawn
naturally and historically by practical reality and by special respect
for private communications.

It is inevitable in defining communications data for this Act that the
same division will not easily be made. This list has demonstrated the
weakness of the present proposed definitions, but I would favour a
simple if in some ways unfair definition, to one which is so complicated
that nobody will ever know whether it applies.

I was struck by the very considerable difference in complexity between
IOCA and RIP. The one was part of a chapter, the other has become a very
unhealthy book.

-- 
David Swarbrick, Solicitor. Computer and Internet Law and Contracts
david@swarb.freeuk.com T: +44(0)1484 722531 F: +44(0)1484 716617
Law-index of 11,200+ case summaries at www.swarb.co.uk