RIPA and file-sharing??

[PeteM]

Clive D. W. Feather wrote  on 7-02-08 08:37:
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> In article <47A6D825.901@callnetuk.com>, PeteM <otcbn@callnetuk.com> writes
>>> (3) We can find some other way to make my disclosure to them legal.
>>> The first two are unacceptable to me, so that leaves the third. And 
>>> that  is what Part 1 Chapter 2 was about.
>>>  If there was a fourth option, what was it?
>>
>> (4) Your disclosure to them shall be illegal and we shall *not* find 
>> some other way to make the disclosure legal, except by the established 
>> mechanism of a court order granted only after independent scrutiny.
>>
>> It shows how far we have come that even you - undoubtedly one of the 
>> good guys - didn't include this on your list of options.
> 
> That *is* a form of number 3, 

Not really. Your number 3 carries the implication that the system *will* 
force you to disclose something purely because the police want it. My 
number 4 says: not necessarily.

> though I accept I didn't make it explicit.
> 
> Personally, I'd have been happy with that, but I suspect that neither 
> law enforcement nor the courts would have been. Do the courts have the 
> manpower to cope with the number of applications there would have been? 

Then let us have either more courts (or at least more independent 
scrutineers) or fewer disclosure applications.

> Let's suppose that 80% of requests for communications data are 
> unnecessary (an assumption I *don't* make); that still means 100,000 
> applications a year. Do you think there would actually have been enough 
> scrutiny to make it worthwhile?

If justice demands that disclosure warrants should be properly 
scrutinised before being granted, then that's what should happen. If 
that means additional cost to the criminal law system, then these 
additional costs must be paid for by diverting resources from other 
activities. If alternatively it is felt that it is better to spend these 
resources on these other activities, then there will have to be fewer 
warrants.

> Perhaps the line should have been drawn between name-and-address queries 
> and other ones. I really don't think that a magistrate or judge can 
> insert much into "we've found this phone number/email address; we need a 
> clue as to who it is before we go much further".

He can at least impose some kind of proportionality. "Exactly what 
suspected offence are you investigating here, DC Perry? Do you really 
think disclosure of two years' phone records is justified for a charge 
of throwing an apple core from one's car into a hedge?"

> But I didn't get to 
> make that choice.

None of us did, but it isn't good enough to say, "Oh well, the police 
want this power and we all know they'll get it in the end so let's just 
turn up our toes and give in". (I know that's not what you said, I'm 
just making the point). Resistance is not always futile. If the ISP 
industry hadn't cooperated quite so enthusiastically with the 
perpetrators of RIPA, we might have ended up with something not quite so 
close to a surveillance state.

-- 
Pete Mitchell