[Gllug] Police want new powers

[Aaron Trevena]

On 7/22/05, SteveC <steve at fractalus.com> wrote:
> * @ 22/07/05 11:44:42 AM rich at annexia.org wrote:
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1533917,00.html
> >
> > Senior officers also want powers to attack and close down websites,
> > and a new criminal offence of using the internet to prepare acts of
> > terrorism, to "suppress inappropriate internet usage".
> >
> > They also want to make it a criminal offence for suspects to refuse to
> > cooperate in giving the police full access to computer files by
> > refusing to disclose their encryption keys.
> 
> It already is a criminal offence, although IIRC some SI's still have to
> go through.
> 
> http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm

The RIP Act has allowed this kind of thing for years and is still
almost entirely unregulated and unaccountable.

You can also be prosecuted for disclosing that somebody is being
bugged or investigated or having their communications intercepted.

I sometimes get the feeling that the Home Office and Police force will
keep on asking for more until they make communist east germany look
like a bunch of liberal hippes.

If they had bothered to implement even the most minimal of security on
public transport and didn't cry wolf over the ricin plot it might be
possible to take them seriously.

But the intelligence services and the related branches of the police
force are looking a complete bunch of amateurs. ID Cards, dismantling
the justice system and other 'emergancy measures' are no substitute
for hard work and actual intelligence (rather than dodgy dossiers and
tall stories for daily express readers).

I never saw a sniffer dog on the underground until now, or even a
policeman. No random searches and spot checks, nothing but posters
about being 'vigilent'.

Worse still is that they are still imagining and rehearsing scenarios
for non-existant chemical/biological/nuclear weapons when they can't
even stop old fashioned explosives, and that they claimed that there
was nobody in the UK who could do it just days before the first set of
bombs.

Hardly makes you think that 'these people need more power and the
ability to detain people without charging or evidence' does it?

A.
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug