"Tipping-off" revisited

[Richard Clayton]

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In article <BC28A9E979C56C44BCBC2DED313A4470784D@bond.campus.ncl.ac.uk>,
Q G Campbell <Q.G.Campbell@newcastle.ac.uk> writes

>The point I was trying to make is that it only needs the issuing
>official to share my view on the likely consequences of a key revocation
>for him to insert a clause in the secrecy provision notice to explicitly
>prevent the recipient from revoking a key.

it's unclear to me what the authority would be for this

>Where in the Act does it say an official cannot take such action?

the relevant question, surely, is where it says that the official can

>To Plods way of thinking it is more likely that an official will include
>such a clause precisely because the lawyers argue that key revocation is
>*not* tipping-off. Inserting such a clause takes away any defence that
>the recipient of the s.49/s.54 may have as to the "innocent" nature of a
>key revocation. He has been told, in writing, *not* to do it and if he
>disregards this then his actions can no longer be "innocent".

I think Plod might well observe to you that revoking your key would
damage the investigation. I doubt however that the subsequent court
action would necessarily be under RIP.... there are other offences that
you could commit.

>One assumes that RIPA will be used in some very sensitive and important
>cases and that the authorities will go to almost any lengths to prevent
>such operations from being compromised. 

One might equally assume it will used on grubby little cases involving
stored data where the police spend most of their time nipping outside to
tip off the journalists as to progress.

Since there were only a handful of historic cases where it might have
been a useful tool [Peter Sommer may be as well placed as anyone to
speculate on the size of that handful ?] - it looks more like a "just in
case" piece of legislation rather than a carefully thought out way of
balancing competing issues on an issue of clear public importance.

Since no-one knows what it will actually be used for, you can't really
expect it to look particularly well designed (eg my observation
yesterday that removing the secrecy clause as you photocopy the notice
to pass it on to the admins with the data is not in fact an offence;
whatever subsequently happens).

Tipping off is compulsory in some places - and LEAs seem to cope. If the
investigation has an international dimension then the enquiries made
abroad may well, by statute, be reported - after a suitable delay - to
the person being investigated. This must weigh with officers before they
nip across to Amsterdam to take advantage of a different level of
sensitivity to privacy invading investigation!

>This is evidenced by their being a significantly higher penalty for
>compromising an operation [by tipping-off] than from merely refusing to
>cooperate with it [by failing to disclose a key].

I think its just that they copied it from another Act ... and everyone
likes consistency :)

- -- 
richard @ highwayman . com                       "Nothing seems the same
                          Still you never see the change from day to day
                                And no-one notices the customs slip away"

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