The Smith Report

[Richard D G Cox]

> Part.I Ch.II Authorisations could be directly implemented by Smith Group
> passive box installed on ISP premises, WITHOUT serving Notice on ISP.

And - if you will forgive my yet again looking for comparisons within the
existing voice intercept process, where the answer to the above question
would certainly be "yes" - the supplementary questions must be (a) whether
such a passive box would keep an audit trail, and (b) whether issue would
be taken if an ISP were to decide to keep such log of its activities, to
protect their own interests from a legal standpoint (but without making
any use of that audit data unless challenged).

There are quite a number of nightmare scenarios for ISPs, but one of them
must be the risk of litigation against them by customers who believe their
datastreams may have been intercepted, when the ISP concerned is unlikely
to even know whether what is alleged is true or not.

Richard Cox