RIP article

[Ian Batten]

On 22 Jul 2009, at 21:48, Ian Johnson wrote:

>> What we probably need is to split the Act up into different
>> pieces, so people no longer get confused between the police
>> tapping the phones of serious organised criminals and local
>> authorities writing down the phone number off the side of a
>> van they've just seen do some fly-tipping.
>
> Yes
> (eg How could you
>> ever get the latter judicially authorised on a case by case
>> basis in advance?)
>
> But the intrusive bit in this is the reverse-lookup. That could
> easily be subjected to court oversight before permission was granted.

So you want every parking ticket to be court authorised before  
issuance?  It requires a DVLA lookup.   What about a car involved in a  
hit and run accident in which a pedestrian is killed: court order  
before you can approach the owner?   How about Ofcom work on silent  
calls and improper use of outbound telemarketing to people who are TPS  
registered: court order for every case?   Malicious calls (which is  
actually even tricker, as there's nothing stopping someone with an NQR  
phone making malicious calls)?  How about credit card fraud, which  
often requires finding individuals from a credit card number?   How  
big do you want these courts to be?  Or would you issue blanket  
authorisations covering these activities, which essentially takes us  
back to square one?

ian