Is virus scanning interception?

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 14:31 19/07/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>In message <200207191329.57571.graham.todd@ntlworld.com>, Graham
><graham.todd@ntlworld.com> writes
>
> >The RIP Act is clear in lawyer's parlance but not that of the
> >reasonably intelligent man in the street.
> >
> >And whilst I can do nothing about it, I continue with the opinion that its
> >badly drafted.
>
>As laws are drafted for courts (supported by lawyers) to interpret, it's
>very clear to me they should use standard legal language.

Many lawyers think that statute law should be clearer than it sometimes is 
(and one would indeed have to be a fool or a parliamentary draftsman to 
think there was no room for improvement).

One way of improving statutes would be to avoid using words which have 
fairly clear ordinary meanings in senses that are subtly different from 
those ordinary meanings.  (A failure to apply this maxim to "interception" 
has clearly misled quite a few people.)

This does not mean that statute law will be easy to understand, 
however.  This is partly because of the UK tradition of fairly precise 
prescription, rather than laying down of general principles, partly because 
a lot of law applies to complex subjects and cannot be much simpler than 
what it applies to, partly because a lot of law interacts with other law 
and cannot be understood without understanding the whole context, and 
partly because law is made through debate between opposing parties and 
reflects the results of often untidy compromises.

Regards

Nicholas

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