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

[Ken Brown]

Caspar Bowden wrote:

[...]

> Lord Bassam sez: 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"

[...]
> So the question is whether it is practicable to determine if parts of a
> UK-UK Hotmail message (POP3 or Web accessed) ARE parts of a Hotmail
> message ?

It is not practicable to determine that a message is UK<->UK.

Any Hotmail message could be read by anyone from any location on the
net.  Of course the same applies to any mail message on any server
accessible through the Internet. 

Imagine I want to send an uninterceptible message to Nasty Person A  in
the USA, and if I seriously believe that the Powers that Be will refrain
from reading it if it is internal to the UK, and that they will accept a
Hotmail or whatever account as internal to UK. All I would need to do is
set up a mailbox for GenuinelyBritishUser@USISP.com, send my mail to it
from t he UK, then log on to it from the UK and read it. 

Meanwhile I tell Nasty Person my username & password and they log on
from the US, or any other country, going nowhere near a UK cable. So the
only way UK intelligence could tell the that the message was not
"internal" was by checking access from other countries.  It is
impossible to say that a message is UK<->UK just because the apparent
recipient is in the UK. There could be any number of non-UK recipients. 
This applies as much to my mailbox here at the university as it does to
Hotmail. I could have told any number of other people what my passwords
are.

<rant>

But the whole argument about GCHQ or anyone else refraining from
intercepting because of domestic UK law is ludicrous of course. If TPTB
can read it and they want to read it they will read it. The idea that
they would stop themselves  because it is "internal" is absurd. In fact
I have trouble believing that anyone here seriously believes it.

Of course they might well draw back from telling anyone they had read
it, or using it in court. Secret organisations will do what they want to
(or, if it makes you feel happier, they will do what they believe to be
their duty) regardless of the law, because they are secret and because
it is easy for them to do so. As long as they are secret they are under
no effective scrutiny, and as long as that is the case they will do what
they think they have to do and look on the rules set by parliament as
namby-pamby liberal interference. 

Committees or courts or commissioners who are themselves within the veil
of secrecy can make no difference. It still boils down to their word
that they are obeying the rules, and of course they would say that,
wouldn't they. If someone tells me that such-and-such a secret action
was necessary for national security, and that the secret services
haven't abused their power because Judge X or Retired Cabinet Minister Y
has seen the evidence and is satisfied, what reason have I to believe
them? Even if they are telling the truth, how would I know? Just because
some Great and Good insider tells me so? We stopped falling for that one
at the Reformation

</rant>

Ken Brown (succumbing to the Calvinism of his Scottish Presbyterian
ancestors - we are all sinners, and anyone given the chance of getting
away with sin iis likely to take it. Power corrupts and all that.
Justice that is not seen to be done probably won't be.)