IP: Sunday Times (London) 30th April: "MI5 builds new centre to read e-mails on the net"

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: "Caspar Bowden" <cb () fipr org>
>
>
> http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/04/30/stinwenws01034.html
> MI5 builds new centre to read e-mails on the net
>
> Nicholas Rufford
>
> MI5 is building a new £25m e-mail surveillance centre that will have the
> power to monitor all e-mails and internet messages sent and received in
> Britain. The government is to require internet service providers, such as
> Freeserve and AOL, to have "hardwire" links to the new computer facility so
> that messages can be traced across the internet.
>
> The security service and the police will still need Home Office permission
> to search for e-mails and internet traffic, but they can apply for general
> warrants that would enable them to intercept communications for a company or
> an organisation.
>
> The new computer centre, codenamed GTAC - government technical assistance
> centre - which will be up and running by the end of the year inside MI5's
> London headquarters, has provoked concern among civil liberties groups.
> "With this facility, the government can track every website that a person
> visits, without a warrant, giving rise to a culture of suspicion by
> association," said Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information
> Policy Research.
>
> The government already has powers to tap phone lines linking computers, but
> the growth of the internet has made it impossible to read all material. By
> requiring service providers to install cables that will download material to
> MI5, the government will have the technical capability to read everything
> that passes over the internet.
>
> Home Office officials say the centre is needed to tackle the use of the
> internet and mobile phone networks by terrorists and international crime
> gangs.Charles Clark, the minister in charge of the spy centre project, said
> it would allow police to keep pace with technology.
>
> "Hardly anyone was using the internet or mobile phones 15 years ago," a Home
> Office source said. "Now criminals can communicate with each other by a huge
> array of devices and channels and can encrypt their messages, putting them
> beyond the reach of conventional eavesdropping."
>
> There has been an explosion in the use of the internet for crime in Britain
> and across the world, leading to fears in western intelligence agencies that
> they will soon be left behind as criminals abandon the telephone and resort
> to encrypted e-mails to run drug rings and illegal prostitution and
> immigration rackets.
>
> The new spy centre will decode messages that have been encrypted. Under new
> powers due to come into force this summer, police will be able to require
> individuals and companies to hand over computer "keys", special codes that
> unlock scrambled messages.
>
> There is controversy over how the costs of intercepting internet traffic
> should be shared between government and industry. Experts estimate that the
> cost to Britain's 400 service providers will be £30m in the first year.
> Internet companies say that this is too expensive, especially as many are
> making losses.
>
> About 15m people in Britain have internet access. Legal experts have warned
> that many are unguarded in the messages they send or the material they
> download, believing that they are safe from prying eyes.
>
> "The arrival of this spy centre means that Big Brother is finally here,"
> said Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes. "The balance between the
> state and individual privacy has swung too far in favour of the state."