Courts and bug product

[Peter Fairbrother]

 From El Reg:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/08/flanagan_ripa/

"Tweaks to RIPA, meanwhile are present in the proposed Counter-terrorism 
Bill.

These include provisions for the Home Secretary to issue a certificate 
requiring an inquest to be held without a jury, thus allowing details of 
surveillance operations relevant to the case to be kept out of the 
public domain. The Institute of Race Relations, which flags the change 
here, notes that this is particularly relevant to case of Azelle Rodney, 
shot dead after a police surveillance operation in 2005. "After the CPS 
decision [not to prosecute]", says the IRR, "the family was told by the 
coroner that the full inquest could not be held because large portions 
of the police officers' statements had been crossed out under the 
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) 2000, which covers 
information obtained from covert surveillance devices such as telephone 
taps or bugs." "


S.17 of RIPA excludes interception product from legal proceedings - but 
afaict there are no provisions in RIPA to protect the product of "bugs", 
or other covert surveillance.


Anyone?


-- Peter Fairbrother