FC: UK police to get power to tap e-mail, restrict anonymity

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

When the DoJ subpoenaed me to testify in a criminal trial where the
defendant, Carl Johnson, had sent me encrypted email
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,19145,00.html), my lawyer
advised me to decrypt it in response to government document production
requests. (Initially I gave DoJ just the encrypted message.) But if Carl
had been the one to receive PGP-encrypted email and the prosecution had
found the enciphered version on his hard drive, he would have been able to
raise a Fifth Amendment defense. Or so the theory goes.

-Declan

********

> From: "Gascoigne, Roger" <Roger.Gascoigne () xpedior com>
> To: "'declan () well com'" <declan () well com>
> Subject: UK Police to get power to tap e-mail -  powers being proposed
> Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 09:02:53 -0500
>
> Declan,
>
> in case you had not seen this ? I am not sure of copyright on this.
>
> Regards
> Roger
> -----------------------
>
> Sunday Times
>
> Police to get power to tap e-mail 
>
>
> Michael Prescott, Political Editor 
>
> COMPUTER users who refuse to divulge their passwords to
> the authorities face up to two years in jail under increased
> police powers to be unveiled in next month's Queen's speech. 
> Other measures drawn up by the government will make it easier
> for companies to monitor employees' phone calls and e-mails. A
> third part of the crackdown will give the police new authority
> to tap mobile phone calls, pager messages and e-mail. 
>
> The plans were already attracting criticism last night, with
> one Tory MP warning that the government risked creating "a
> state surveillance system like something out of Orwell's 1984". 
>
> Government ministers will justify the measures as necessary to
> trap pornographers, drug traffickers and fraudsters who exploit
> new technology. Police officers who gain a search warrant from
> the courts can already look at computer files, but provisions
> in the forthcoming e-commerce bill will allow them to demand
> passwords used to protect sensitive data. A suspect who witholds
> them faces a jail term of up to two years. 
>
> "Paedophiles and drug barons tend to send material that can be
> unlocked only if you know a code often extending to many digits,"
> said a senior government source last night. "The law has to catch
> up with this." 
>
> The bill will also legally oblige internet service providers 
> ISPs) to keep records showing to and from whom material has been
> sent and received. In spite of industry complaints about the cost,
> ministers want the ISPs to keep detailed records on all customers
> for days at a time. 
[...]



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