UK Investigatory Powers Bill: Politicians exempt themselves from new laws

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/investigatory-powers-bill-a7447781.html

by Liriel • 10 years ago

159 89 10 years ago

independent.co.uk

tupilaq• 10 years ago

Whilst at first glance this doesn't look altogether fair, I can understand why its been done.

The government should not be able to use the tools of state to suppress legitimate parliamentary opposition. There would be nothing to stop the party in power using the law to specifically target opposing parties.

For the rest of us here in the UK, your traffic is already being collated and probably has been for some time.

amelius2• 10 years ago

The government should not be able to use the tools of state to suppress legitimate parliamentary opposition. There would be nothing to stop the party in power using the law to specifically target opposing parties.

Why not introduce a law that further decouples intelligence agencies and the government. It could be made mandatory that information released by agencies are released to all members of parliament. This way, the government gets more transparency, and the people also get more transparency indirectly.

Just my 2 pence.

lostboys67• 10 years ago

That would require all MP's to be vetted :-)

stevetrewick2• 10 years ago

I think everyone can understand why it's been done. Because parliamentarians have looked at the legislation and come to the conclusion that it would infringe on what they believe to be their legitimate privileges.

It's just that they don't believe those same privileges should extend to everyone else.

Note the use of the word 'privileges' rather than rights, because once parliament starts making that distinction between groups that have them and groups that don't that's exactly what they become.

JshWright• 10 years ago

Why not go the other direction? All government business (emails, phone records, use of official computers, etc) should be public information. You can't blackmail someone with something everyone knows...

(Obvious exceptions would be necessary for things that are truly national security secrets, etc).

zigzigzag3• 10 years ago

In theory it is. That's what the FOIA does. Problem is there are lots of exemptions.

Sean1708• 10 years ago

It can only be accessed with a warrant, so what are the politicians worried about? If they have nothing to hide, they should have nothing to fear.

secfirstmd3• 10 years ago

Politicians making one rule for the plebs and one rule for themselves? Well I never!

ghostDancer2• 10 years ago

Politicians are the new noble class, it's like middle age but instead of count/dukes and the rest we now have politicians. Maybe we need another french revolution.

gmac3• 10 years ago

Please, enough of this nonsense. What we need is for people to vote for better politicians. To my mind, the main obstacle to that is the awful UK press, and the increasing extent to which the BBC is a government broadcaster rather than a public broadcaster.

rl35• 10 years ago

Normally this would be a positive feature, since it (in theory) serves to protect politicians from being coerced or blackmailed. However, I can't help but think it's the same gutless people that voted this in simply protecting their own interests above all else.

On the other hand, the protections may serve useful some day should they suddenly locate their spines—or perhaps a wave of vertebrate politicians somehow takes office. Either way, the protections would make it easier for the newly-granted surveillance powers to be revoked. Wishful thinking, of course.

At least the UK doesn't waste time on charades like we do here in the US—serving up deprecated or redundant surveillance programs on the altar of political sacrifice while other, more compartmented programs (usually broader and more invasive in scope) seamlessly take their place. Then again, perhaps there's just not enough public opposition to justify the effort in the first place.

deutronium• 10 years ago

I'm not sure how it's a positive feature at all, why should they be treated differently from the rest of us.

dom0• 10 years ago

I'm not sure why anyone would expect the agencies to actually adhere to these laws (they didn't before anyway). Having a nice bucket of kompromat on every relevant politician is rather enticing.

rl35• 10 years ago

Morally I don't disagree that it's indefensible.

From a pragmatic point of view, it may have some utility. It's easier to fight surveillance when you're not being actively blackmailed by said surveillance.

The counterargument there is that it's also easier not to care about surveillance reform when you know you're insulated from the surveillance in the first place. Likely a false sense of security, though.

ENGNR• 10 years ago

It's unclear from the article though, does this protect politicians who haven't actually won a seat?

If it only protects those in power it's actually the reverse, since democracy is supposed to be a 'battle of ideas' to prevent physical battles, giving the winning side the upper hand would weaken the system

zigzigzag3• 10 years ago

There's no protection - the people who have to sign off on it are both from the ruling party. If it had been "The Prime Minister AND the leader of each party in Parliament" then you could talk about some level of protection. But as is, it's just a way to tip the playing field to the ruling government of the day.

realusername• 10 years ago

I'm not really convinced on the first part, any citizen can be coerced or blackmailed providing they are acting against some interests, not only politicians and this kind of exception does not prevent that. What about journalists or random activists?

cabalamat• 10 years ago

it (in theory) serves to protect politicians from being coerced or blackmailed

Fine, then let's protect ordinary people from being coerced or blackmailed, too.

cmdrfred2• 10 years ago

But how do you write it in such a way that billionaires are protected and yet we can still spy on dangerous radical protestors and labor movement organizers?

Oh you mean poor ordinary people? You sweet summer child.

yAnonymous3• 10 years ago

Just like high salaries prevent politicians from being bribed, right?

philipov• 10 years ago

I don't understand. If you're a good citizen, you should have nothing to hide.

rebuilder• 10 years ago

When they say records are not able to be accessed without a warrant, do they mean that or do they mean it's illegal to access the records without a warrant?

rl35• 10 years ago

That is an excellent question.

The NSA developments in recent years have shown that while privacy protections do exist that limit access to collected data (e.g. FISA warrants), they're still collecting everything on everyone regardless. The intercepted data then rots in a huge database for years at a minimum—in practice probably indefinitely.

In what was one of the the most brilliant legal/public relations plays in recent history, NSA decided to play a shell game with the definitions of the terms "collection" and "targeting", redefining them (when convenient) as the accessing of data—by humans—that's already been intercepted and stored.

seanp2k2• 10 years ago

With accessing further defined as an actual human looking at it, not a computer parsing it or generating statistics over the collected data of individuals in aggregate.

doc_holliday• 10 years ago

Slightly related question, does anyone know if these laws are backdated. I.e a year's worth of data retention is that available to the list of access from now? As in have ISP already been collecting?

Has the data collection started? Is it about to start?

tonyedgecombe2• 10 years ago

'Has the data collection started?'

I think we can assume it's been going on for years already.

dingaling• 10 years ago

Has the data collection started? Is it about to start?

At the behest of this Act? No, not yet. It has yet to be determined and ordered how "Internet Connection Records" will be collected and stored; perhaps this will occur at backhauls and exchange levels, rather than at the terminating ISP level. Much easier to implement and for the 'authorities' to query.

ionised2• 10 years ago

Seriously, bring out the guillotine.

We are WAY overdue for a culling of the ruling class.

tonyedgecombe2• 10 years ago

Revolutions are always followed by a new set of leaders, often worse than what was there before.

ionised2• 10 years ago

Often, not always.

I'm under no illusion that revolutions are bloodless, but I believe that sometimes they are the the only option when system becomes so corrupt and rigged in favour of a small, wealthy, ruling elite.

The French Revolution for example which was grisly as all fuck and the years of instability afterwards can not be understated. Yet I do believe that what eventually came out of it (the French Republic) is far, far better than what came before the people started chopping the heads off the insane, greedy, oppressive aristrocracy.

There are of course counter-examples. The Russian revolution. Though was the revolution itself the problem there, or the people that commandeered it for themselves in the years afterwards (e.g. Stalin)?

I cannot see a way to fix the current system. The populace is so suppressed in ways that are sometimes subtle as fuck. Decades of demagogue politicians playing on fears, dividing the demographics into us-versus-them tribes out for blood, fostering the paranoia and fear of the foreigner, engaging in massive orgies of deregulation of financial services that cause crash after econimic crash, where the average schmuck picks up the bill and those reponsible get to carry on as normal.

Repealing basic services like welfare and healthcare, fostering resentment between age groups, racial groups and classes as a misdirection of attention from the actual cause of our current ills, socially irresponsible banks and financial services that have no tangible value to society other than to move money around.

Intelligence services and police forces focused on inward threats from their own people lest they somehow upset the status quo of funneling up the wealth of nations into the hands of a few oligarchs at the top of the pyramid.

Western democracy is completely fucked. It has been corrupted and made a sick facsimile of what it was intended to be. There is no fixing this system without massive civil unrest, and that impending civil unrest is why (I believe) we are witnessing the insance lurch towards authoritarianism and watering down of basic rights all over Europe and the US, it's those with a lot to lose preparing themselves.

And they are winning. They will continue to fuck us all as long as we keep falling for the whole 'terrorist', 'immigrants', 'paedophile', 'hackers' bullshit as a reason why they must keep taking away our rights and liberties.

We are frogs slowly boiling alive in the cooking pot.

elcct• 10 years ago

You have to cut through all the baddies!

arethuza4• 10 years ago

Careful what you wish for - look what happened to Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre etc.

"the Revolution devours its children"

nothrabannosir• 10 years ago

A bit ironic that Robespierre and Danton ended up in that same list. :)

mike-cardwell• 10 years ago

"Internet connection records – a history of every website that someone has visited, but not every page – will still be collected for MPs"

So at least if a shifty employee feels like taking a look at the data, or leaks the data, or an ISP gets hacked, our MP's browsing history will be exposed too.

wlkr• 10 years ago

Unfortunately I don't think that the retention aspect will be revoked - no matter how much it's detested - but I do believe the only way that the government will tighten access is when a few people inevitably leak at best embarassing data on members of the political class.

The lack of technological literacy amongst the populus and the utter contempt which the government has towards privacy and anonymity is very disheartening.

karmacoda• 10 years ago

The UK is as corrupt as everyone claims Russia is, starting with the BBC. Theresa May has turned out to be a tyrant. As a Brit, I don't know if I'm more disgusted by the arrogance of the ruling class, or the apathy of the subservient working class. Dystopia is here. Talk of bloody revolution is not necessary - the first cyber revolution?

cmdrfred2• 10 years ago

If its any consolidation the same is true of the US. I'd wager if you looked deep enough the same entities that have corrupted the UK also corrupted the US and Russia.

jahnu• 10 years ago

Please. This is hyperbole of the first order.

http://www.transparency.org/country#GBR

http://www.transparency.org/country#RUS

logingone• 10 years ago

My first thought is of the repeated derailing of the investigation into the political class paedophile investigation.

yAnonymous3• 10 years ago

"Corruption perception index"

That's the problem. Corruption in the UK isn't perceived as such, because they go to greater lengths to hide it. That doesn't change the fact that UK politics are rotten to the core and their politics have a much bigger global effect. Remember when London bankers recently manipulated the stock market and got away with it?

And let's not ignore that Transparency International themselves are somewhat shady. They gave Hillary Clinton an award for integrity and that's only the funniest of their failings.

Fifer82• 10 years ago

I am glad to see this rise in people who are actively realizing that BBC News is State Media. The government are using the grey vote to take away wiggle room that they don't understand and know that younger generations don't want. The BBC and News Papers play a strong role in where the country goes right now. It makes me sick and deeply irritated so I try not to think about that too much.

Fjolsvith• 10 years ago

Next up, Politicians exempt themselves from losing office.

johngalt• 10 years ago

Before anyone looks down their nose at the UK. This is really common in the US as well. If the law is onerous, then there will be exceptions for the politically connected. If the law is helpful or permissive, then it will apply to the politically connected first.

A good barometer for deciding if proposed legislation is helpful or harmful: figure out who the law applies to first and who it applies to last.

javiramos• 10 years ago

I am very curious about this phenomenon. Do you have any examples or references?

arca_vorago2• 10 years ago

Insider trading not being illegal for congress comes to mind. Immunity from prosecution for revealing classified information on the house floor as well. Those are the two I always think of when pondering this subject.

dman• 10 years ago

Insider trading laws.

wavefunction• 10 years ago

Even prosecutorial discretion is an unofficial perk that benefits the wealthy and connected in this country.

5555624• 10 years ago

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873245047045784131...

a3n• 10 years ago

Before anyone looks down their nose at the UK. This is really common in the US as well.

And so both deserve to be at the bottom of a nose gaze.

madaxe_again2• 10 years ago

The thing is, the exemption isn't relevant in the way that it seems to be. Sure, on the surface, it looks like a carve-out that exempts them from the bill, and we boo, but let's take a step back and consider what the exemption actually reveals.

Will it prevent their data from being collected? No. Do warrants magically seal data away from human eyes? No. Will contractors and administrators and bored people with access on the job have access? Yes.

Therefore, does it actually protect them from the force of the bill? Not really. Sure, the police couldn't use bulk collected data in a case against an MP without the PM's say-so, but what's to stop Boz Admin selling their porn history to a newspaper?

Nothing.

No, what is actually relevant about the exemption is the breathtaking naivety and shortsightedness of those in power when confronted with something they don't fully comprehend revealed by its existence. If they actually understood the Greek fire they're playing with they would not have passed the legislation.

It's up there with a president-elect saying "it's visually important for me to...", plainly echoing what a spin-doctor adviser said to him, equally revealing the small minds behind the great Oz.

The crushing nature of a surveillance state comes only in a small part from centralised orchestrated action. Most of it is crushingly mundane - an officer wants to boff your wife, so you are a pedophile and you divorce. The soviet's daughter got mud on her dress at your garage so the place is shut down for code violations, and mysteriously the soviet's son is running the place next week. Your neighbour who works at equifax doesn't like your face so your credit score goes down.

The more centralised the truth is the easier it is for dirty hands to rewrite it.

abandonliberty• 10 years ago

That the politicians have no idea what they are dealing with and deciding on for the entire nation is well known.

Our organizations don't reward the smartest, but those who gain the most power and sway others.

Any law they strive to pass will increase their power. That they seek to circumvent any law is a clear sign they fear it will reduce the power of those impacted by it. They don't have to be effective in their efforts to reveal the truth of the situation:

This law weakens those it applies to people and democracy.

Create• 10 years ago

We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen-WhyFreedomOfThoughtRe...

Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism itself.

UK Investigatory Powers Bill: Politicians exempt themselves from new laws

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