Wired News: Brits tone down Email Bill

[Owen Blacker]

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Sent:	Wednesday, June 28, 2000 4:30 PM
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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37261,00.html
or http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,37261,00.html

Brits Tone Down Email Bill 
Reuters 

10:20 a.m. Jun. 27, 2000 PDT 
 
     

LONDON -- The British government tabled a series of amendments to its
bill allowing police and security services to view private emails on
Tuesday to head off a brewing revolt in the upper chamber of
parliament. 

Government sources said ministers wanted to define more clearly what
information police could have access to without a warrant. 

Home Office (interior ministry) minister Charles Clarke has also
signaled he would look at the potential cost to business of the
Regulation and Investigatory Powers Bill
 
The government says the bill merely updates police powers to intercept
and monitor communications, bringing them up to speed with
technologically sophisticated criminals. People who refuse to yield
encryption codes could face up to two years in jail. 

But some groups claim the plans, as they stand, could saddle business
with a 640 million pound ($961 million) bill over the next five years.
Civil liberties groups are also up in arms over what they see as an
invasion of privacy. 

Changes to the bill were lodged in the House of Lords. A rebellion in
the upper house, something the Lords are getting a taste for, had been
threatened. 

Opposition Conservatives have had their teeth into the legislation
ever since it was hived off a broader e-commerce bill and handed to
the Home Office. 

"Throughout we have pressed for amendments to ensure that British
businesses are not forced into bankruptcy or to leave the country and
to protect the rights of individuals on the Web," Conservative home
affairs spokesman Oliver Heald said. 

"At last it seems that the government is beginning to listen." 

Nick Higson, head of the Confederation of British Industry's (CBI)
e-business group, said the amendments were a step in the right
direction. 

He welcomed a government concession that, in most cases, companies
will be able to hand over printed text rather than encryption keys
needed to unscramble coded e-mail. 

But he said the CBI would continue to press government to pay for
interception equipment -- the so-called black box -- that an Internet
service provider would have to install so that the forces of law and
order could access e-mail traffic. 

"Companies would like to see all legitimate businesses excluded from
the need to supply encryption keys," Higson said. 

The bill is being watched closely by a clutch of European countries
that have yet to legislate on the Internet and email. 

Business chiefs have warned it could drive e-businesses away from
Britain in droves -- not only on cost grounds, but also over the issue
of commercial confidentiality.

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