RIP s22 notices SI

[Owen Lewis]

I think this issue is of sufficient importance that all of us should contact
our MP with a 'wake up call' to the effects of the proposed detail to be set
before parliament. Ian Brown has kindly suggested that the following will
provide a convenient way to do this. See 'fax your MP at
http://www.stand.org.uk/weblog/archive/2002/06/10/000193.php . I hope that
we all will make use of this service or make similar arrangements.

I do wish that, on this occasion, there was a rapid means to contact all
MP's. However one understands that the inevitable abuse of any such facility
by professional lobbyists would quickly lead it to be discarded. So, perhaps
we should do it the hard way. Don't just fax yourself. Get your
brother/sister/friends and colleagues to do likewise.

Tell them that it is not just *your* life that is going to be stripped bare
at the signature of some middle manager but *theirs* and their
brother/sister/spouse/paramour etc. The iniquity in passing such unnecessary
and oppressive legislation should be patent.

We are only going to get one shot at having this Jack-in-Office's charter
stopped. If we do nothing. It will pass into law 'on the nod'. If you don't
believe me, listen to a replay of this morning's pathetic three line item on
the Today program. According to Today (regurgitating some govt handout
verbatim, no doubt), the long list of minor govt offices and QUANGOs to be
to be given access to detail of our communications is to "counter
terrorism".

Excuse me, but what the F*CK have any of the following to do with countering
terrorism?

   1. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
   2. The Department of Health.
   3. (Deleted)
   4. The Department of Trade and Industry.
   5. The Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions.
   6. The Department for Work and Pensions.
   7. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment for Northern
      Ireland.

   AND pretty much any local authority:

   8. Any local authority within the meaning of section 1 of the Local
      Government Act 1999
   9. Any fire authority as defined in the Local Government (Best Value)
      Performance Indicators Order 2000
  10. A council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc.
      (Scotland) Act 1994
  11. A district council within the meaning of the Local Government Act
      (Northern Ireland) 1972

   AND NHS bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland:

  12. The Common Services Agency of the Scottish Health Service.
  13. The Northern Ireland Central Services Agency for the Health and
      Social Services.

   AND some other bodies:

  14. The Environment Agency.
  15. The Financial Services Authority.
  16. The Food Standards Agency.
  17. The Health and Safety Executive.
  18. The Information Commissioner.
  19. The Office of Fair Trading.
  20. The Postal Services Commission.
  21. The Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency.

To the extent that any of the above are on the periphery of counter
terrorist operations, there is no reason why they should be added to the
access list but, rather, they should be supplied with the limited
information, on a strict need to know basis, by the office leading the
operation.

Number 3 (deleted from the above list) is the Home Office. This requires
special attention. Yes, it has departments which are involved in counter
terrorism but these *already* have the power of lawful access. The rest of
the many headed hydra of the Home Office has little or no more excuse that
the Office of Fair Trading for the grant of such draconian powers of
surveillance. Does the Home Office as a whole imagine it 'wages war of
terrorism' in some way that the MOD does not? Yet the MOD has not found it
necessary to seek to strip bare the lives of all who live in this country at
the stoke of the pen of some middle ranking Jack-in-Office. No, I say;
through powers already granted to the Security Service and the police, the
Home Office already has all sufficient access when that is truly essential
to the security of the state and the detection of serious crime.

While you are at it, why not get your MP to ask as a Parliamentary Question
for confirmation that the Office of Fair Trading and NHS bodies *ever*
participate actively in counter-terrorist operations. It won't get a
straight answer but is will raise derisive laughter from all sides of the
House. Such derision is, at this point, one of the most effective weapons
that can be wielded to stop this nonsense.

The draft Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data:
Additional Public Authorities) Order 2002 is a hobgoblin. It will live and
pass into out law if fed on inertia, fear and ignorance. It will not
withstand the full light of day and the derision that will follow it being
recognised for the nasty, hateful thing that it is. If the reaction is
sufficiently vehement, just maybe its creators will think twice before being
so venturesome again against the interests of each and every individual in
this land.

Lets get moving folks and not leave it all to FIPR and other established
pressure groups. If we all shout and our friends etc shout. It will have far
more effect than yet one more pricking from the usual perceived thorns in
govt flesh.

Owen Lewis

e-mail: oml@sysrx.uk.com
tel:	  +44-(0)1264-361582
fax:    +44-(0)1264-338051