FW: [Apc-euroir-ws] "RIP Act" could result in massive surveillance -- BBC

[Caspar Bowden]

..
> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk] On Behalf Of=20
> Richard Clayton
..
> >> I suspect that if you use a HotMail account to write to your next=20
> >> door neighbour then the=20

Interception Commissioner=20

> >> is going to rule that
> >> there were two communications, each of which had one end=20
> >> in the USA.

> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk] On Behalf Of=20
> Roland Perry
...=20
> Hotmail is store and forward. I seems pretty clear to me that=20
> it's two different communications.


I don't see this at all. How is the letter of the law of RIP supposed to
distinguish between Hotmail and a POP3 box on a foreign ISP ?

> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk] On Behalf Of=20
> Caspar Bowden
...
> Can't be bothered to look up but this interpretation is not what ISTR
> (previous) RIP Pt.I official told me last year. Think it's in=20
> Lords Hansard somewhere.

Now I have bothered. I presume the Interception Commission can/will use
this in a Pepper&Hart sense in his secret solitary deliberations about
the intended will of Parliament.

Bassam's rationale for rejecting the amendment being debated here (which
FIPR proposed to elucidate this very point) is that "sent or received
outside UK" means whether packets leave UK is NOT criterion of
externality, and impractical for GCHQ to operate in a "I counted them
all out and I counted them all back again" mode to eliminate extraneous
INTERNAL comms.

The ref. to INTERNAL (my caps) means it is clear=20

"Lord Bassam: ... It is just not possible to ensure that only external
communications are intercepted. That is because modern communications
are often routed in ways that are not all intuitively obvious. Noble
Lords who have contributed to the debate understand that. An INTERNAL
communication--say, a message from London to Birmingham--may be handled
on its journey by Internet service providers in, perhaps, two different
countries outside the United Kingdom. We understand that. The
communication might therefore be found on a link between those two
foreign countries. Such a link should clearly be treated as external,
yet it would contain at least this one internal communication. There is
no way of filtering that out without intercepting the whole link,
including the internal communication.=20

Even after interception, it may not be practicably possible to guarantee
to filter out all internal messages. Messages may well be split into
separate parts which are sent by different routes. Only some of these
will contain the originator and the intended final recipient. Without
this information it will not be possible to distinguish internal
messages from external"
12 Jul 2000 : Column 323
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/v
o000712/text/00712-22.htm

Interestingly Gerhard Schmid MEP (Chair of EP Echelon temporary Ctee)
hinted to me that DEUTSCHELON does it other way; i.e. defines anything
leaving Germany as fair game for trawling, so they don't need the 5.6
get out clause.

Seems to me this is all a game about language chosen by parliamentary
draftsmen 17 years ago - but the get-out clauses matter, because Lord
Lloyd's invention of overlapping warrants
(http://www.fipr.org/rip/OverRideCertificates.htm) shows how far the
Interception Commissioner can and will bend over to accommodate
"unforeseen lacunae". Yeah right.
--
Caspar =
Bowden=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=
=A0=A0=A0 www.fipr.org
Director, Foundation for Information Policy Research
Tel: +44(0)20 7354 2333=20


=20