Letwin wants increased penalties for refusal to decrypt

[Bettina Jodda (Twister)]

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Good morning

On Saturday 17 August 2002 10:31, iriXx wrote:
> hi,
>
> > Furthermore:
> > where will be the difference between
> > a) someone who is owning pedophilia material
> > b) someone who is "likely to be owning" pedophilia material but fails to
> > decrypt files on his hard-disc supposed to be pedophilia material?
> >
> > So forgetting your passphrase will be equal to owning pedophilia
> > material?
>
> what worries me is how open to abuse this could be. not just from being
> accused of 'paedophilia'.... but imagine you're an activist, not all that
> liked by govt. for your opinions, and someone decides to suspect your hard
> disk has 'terrorist' material....

I think that legal systems (or at least democratic systems) are based on the
presumption of innocence.

And I (as an activist or sort of :-)
am the opinion that all these things
- - data retention
- - being forced to give out your private key and being brought to jail when not 
doing to
- - ... (fill in your favourite law or draft)

are against this idea.

That is why I tend to say "it is not a matter of privacy or encryption",
I tend to say "it is a matter of human rights"

Before E-Mails etc. were brought to attention, it was necessary (here in 
Germany) to have an allowance by a judge for tapping etc.
For getting this allowance you had to prove that the person you want to tap is 
really a suspect.
Now, in times of mobile phones and e-mails, you can simply say "there are 
terrorist out there" to make people believe it is right to read their e-mails 
etc.

I have a rather private memory about how I came to to privacy and encryption:
it was when all my private e-mails were read and someone said this would be 
alright as (quote) "I thought I would find something strange, so I looked for 
it and I found it"
Actually this "something strange" was saying "Darling" to a friend.
If you try to translate this to a broader range you can say: "I invaded your 
privacy and as I found something - no matter what- I was right"
And if not...well, sorry about it.
Where is the presumption of innocence in this?

And  furthermore:
it is not only like Zimmermann said "if privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will 
have privacy" -- it is more than that.
"Only skilled outlaws will have privacy"
And this it what worries me most - you can accuse anyone, you can even blame 
him if you have invaded his privacy as he was "not clever enough to secure 
his privacy".

So people will be forced to have technical skills to keep a human right.
And those who will leave it will be to blame for themselves...
Twister
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