Striking the Right Balance between Privacy and Public Protect ion

[Ian G Batten]

On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Watkin Simon wrote:

> "I have the misfortune each day, and I shouldn't really do it, to read
> Britain's newspapers and commentaries and leader writers and we are,
> actually, almost at the edge of insanity.  I read one leader this morning
> that suggested that I'd made a decision yesterday because my son had told me
> to - when what I'd actually said was that I had a son and he was interested
> in what I was doing as well, which I thought made me a human being, but
> apparently it did not." 

It's hard to actually parse that as English, and even once I've managed
it I have absolutely no idea what it means.  Could you gloss it for us?
Is the first sentence saying the leader writers are insane?  Blunkett
himself is insane?  The people in the room with him at the time are
insane?  Any of the foregoing, but meant ironically?  The second
sentence is presumably just regret that invoking children and pets
doesn't work as well as it used to, but it's hard to tell.

> > I'm afraid my view is that Home Office tried to grab as much
> > power as they could in case they needed it later, got caught, 
> > and is now
> > spinning furiously in order to disown responsibility.
> 
> I reject the proposition that we were grabbing power.

Allowing local government officials, without warrants, to demand
communications logs with no penalties attached to abuse and no mechanism
to prove abuse isn't grabbing power?  Could you give me an example of
what you _would_ regard as grabbing power, so we can calibrate your
level of concern?

> What we are trying to
> do is replace the unregulated and unsupervised regime for access to
> communications data under the DPA and replace it with a regulated and
> overseen regime under RIPA.  ALL the public authorities listed in the Order
> use the DPA to lesser and greater extents, directly and indirectly, to
> access communications data.

Just because the current situation is bad doesn't mean we should
gratefully accept a worse one.  The regime proposed had few penalities
or mechanisms to handle misuse.  I'll accept interception regimes if
inappropriate access results in the offenders going to jail, with a
toothful watchdog handling complains and also auditing a random random
of accesses.  Pull every 100th, or 1000th, or whatever, and bottom it
out.  If it doesn't look right, rip the organisation that originated it
to shreds.  Or don't you regard the recent high profile failures of
Customs and Excise prosecutions as worrying?  The ease that private
detectives can purchase access to the PNC?

> > So your argument is that the department engages in ``big 
> > blunders'', but
> > if we trust them, it'll all be OK?
> 
> I want to understand your concerns, seek so far as I can to address them, to
> earn your trust and assure you that I am not a foot soldier of an evil
> empire or an agent of repressive government, 

I don't know how you can know that.  Quite clearly, the spooks and
elements in the police want mass surveillance --- seven year storage of
almost everything is openly advocated by the police, for example.  You
are acting to promote a regime in which the police are able to demand
information pretty much without let or hindrance, and they would have
regarded the proposed SI as a good step along the way.  Civil Servants
have a moral duty, in my view, to prevent unprincipled elements in
government from taking powers which can, and will, be mis-used.  Just
because you're honest doesn't mean that the people you are dealing with
are, and although the look of the innocent naif is touching in
pre-raphelite painting, it's not quite the same for the Home Office.

> > > One person not to blame for any of this is the Home Secretary.
> > 
> > Oh, isn't the Home Secretary responsible for SIs issues by the Home
> > Office?  Who is, then?  And people wonder why voting isn't taken
> > seriously anymore.
> 
> I meant that within government there are politicians and there are
> officials.  If you ask me whose fault it was that we ended up where we did,
> that fault lay _more_ with officials who misjudged their advice to the
> politicians.  OK so the politicians accepted the advice they were given but

So ``not to blame for any of this'' isn't right, is it?  He didn't have
the political sense to realise that it was political suicide, and
neither did his advisors.  What's changed to make it any better this
time around?

> > Simon: a simple question.  When that SI was issued, which _elected_
> > member of government of the United Kingdom was responsible for it?
> 
> Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Bob Ainsworth MP
> http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ministers/ainsworth.htm

So why did Blunkett take the rap when it went wrong?  Has Ainsworth
accepted any blame in this?

ian