Letwin wants increased penalties for refusal to decrypt

[Andrew Cormack]

He was interviewed on Today sometime between 710 and 725 this morning
(sorry for the imprecision: I can hear the radio but not see the clock
from my bath!). I think the gist was "penalties similar to those for the
offence". Alleged offence, presumably ???

It did strike me as interesting to be calling for changes to a law that
isn't even in force yet :-(

Andrew

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk 
> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk] On Behalf Of 
> Richard Clayton
> Sent: 16 August 2002 09:08
> To: UKcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: Letwin wants increased penalties for refusal to decrypt
> 
> 
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> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2196734.stm
> 
> This is a piece about Oliver Letwin (shadow Home Secretary) 
> calling for "grooming" (that's what you and I used to call 
> seduction, but it's much more scary if there's a new word for 
> it) to be made illegal.
> 
> However buried away in the middle is the single sentence:
> 
>         He also wants increased penalties for paedophiles who 
> refuse to
>         unlock encrypted information being stored on the internet.
> 
> Since we still don't have Part III of RIP 2000 in force yet 
> I'm unclear what sort of increase this would be... but 
> presumably the idea is that you'd get more than the 2 years 
> maximum of s53(5) if the information you refused to decrypt 
> was said to be illegal images of children.
> 
> Quite how anyone knows that they're illegal images of 
> children if you refuse to decrypt them (or why they need to 
> be decrypted if people know what they are) is one of those 
> philosophical puzzles that so bedevil proposals to fiddle 
> around with penalty levels.
> 
> Myself, I think he should probably be more interested in what 
> paedophiles are storing on their hard disks than "on the 
> Internet"; but I don't suppose it is entirely fair to read 
> too much into a sound-byte.
> 
> - -- 
> richard                                              Richard Clayton
> 
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