Tory Hero Dominic Raab…40 Tory MPs set to oppose the Government’s Snooper’s Charter

Read more UK Parliament Watch at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See article from dailymail.co.uk

Nasty plans for a snoopers charter’ were in turmoil last night after 40 Tory MPs threatened a full-scale revolt. They are demanding major changes to the Communications Bill. The backbenchers say the Bill’s scope must be limited to terrorism and the most serious crimes if Britain is not to be turned into a nation of suspects. Tory MP Dominic Raab has collected the names of 40 colleagues who will sign an open letter opposing the Bill unless it is substantially amended: “We urge you to limit the application of the Bill to terrorist offences and the most serious crimes, limit access to such data to the intelligence agencies, SOCA and the police, and make the regime subject to judicial warrant as a safeguard against abuse.” “From a law enforcement perspective, there has been no explanation as to how those using foreign internet and communications service providers will be prevented from circumventing the regime.” “Equally, given the public sector’s woeful track record of protecting personal data, we are concerned about the vulnerability of the scheme to both the negligence of officials and attempts to infiltrate the system by those with criminal intent. We would urge you to consult in further detail with the Information Commissioner, internet providers, telephone companies and other external experts, to test the technical integrity of the proposals.” “Finally, the Home Office estimates the proposals would cost ฃ2 billion. The Committee stated that these estimates ‘are not robust’. We urge Ministers to subject the proposals to external audit and re-consider their law enforcement cost-benefit in light of the suggestions made, above, to limit their breadth and tighten their focus.” Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has already demanded the Government return to the drawing board . Now the prospect of a rebellion by both Coalition parties means ministers may have to rely on Labour support. However, the Opposition has yet to say where it stands on the issue. The 40 MPs are unnamed but Raab said the 40 MPs include 19 first elected in 2010, a group who have proved they will take a stand on issues of importance.

Internet Champions vs Government’s Joke Police…Major internet companies set to oppose the Government’s Snooper’s Charter

Read more UK Parliament Watch at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See  article from  dailymail.co.uk

Google, Facebook and Twitter are set to torpedo reprehensible Home Office plans to spy on every citizen’s emails and website visits. The companies have threatened to block the snoopers charter, which requires them to store all data for a year so that security agencies, police and councils can request its disclosure should they need to investigate internet insults. Civil liberty groups point out that the powers would create a surveillance state, but Britain’s security and intelligence agencies claim they are vital to investigate insulting messages and crimes against political correctness. Parliamentary testimonies of internet bosses have been released by a cross-party committee of MPs and peers that is scrutinising the draft Communications Data Bill. They reveal directors from Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Twitter believe the Bill would breach users’ privacy and allow repressive regimes to spy on Britons. Facebook said it might go to court to resist the new law, while Google and Twitter executives said they could refuse to unlock encrypted data if the Government were to seek the information via third-party providers such as BT. Facebook said it might go to court to resist the new law, while Google and Twitter said they could refuse to unlock encrypted data

Distributed Queries…Communications snooping facility will act like a central database

Read more UK Government Watch at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See  article from  bbc.co.uk

The government’s Communications Data Bill will effectively create a giant centralised database of everyone in the UK’s web activities, MPs and peers have heard. The bill would force telecoms companies to store details of internet use and communications for a year and also to implement a query interface so that the data can be used as if it were part of a massive centralised database. Home Secretary Theresa May claimed that the data will not be held on a single government database. But security experts told the cross-party committee examining the bill it would operate in a similar way. The communications bill was published in draft form earlier this year and is being examined in detail by a committee of MPs and peers before it begins its passage into law. Civil liberties groups giving evidence to the committee suggested the query system could be used to mount fishing expeditions rather than targeted surveillance – something the Home Office has explicitly claimed will not happen. Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said: The filtering provisions are so broadly worded and so poorly drafted that it could allow mining of all the data collected, without any requirement for personal information, which is the very definition of a fishing trip. Internet freedom campaigner Jim Killock, of the Open Rights Group, said officials would be able to build up a complex map of individuals’ communications by examining records of their mobile phone, their normal phone, their work email, their Facebook account and so on. The campaigners called on the committee to recommend scrapping the data communications bill, rather than making suggestions to improve it as they have been tasked to do by the government. ‘Lack of trust’ …Read the full article

Minor Minding Data Mining…Facebook to use data mining techniques to seek out criminal activity

Read more Website News at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See  article from  digitalspy.co.uk

Facebook has announced that it is snooping on postings on the site for signs of criminal activity. The social network is using its data-mining techniques to scan chats and posts between users with a loose relationship for signs of suspicious behaviour. Content that has been flagged up is then reviewed to determine whether further steps, such as notifying police, are required. The tool will pay particular interest to users who only recently became friends, have no mutual friends, and have a significant age gap between them. Other factors such as phraseology, geographic location and frequency of contact are also taken into account. Facebook chief security officer Joe Sullivan told Reuters: We’ve never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it’s really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate,

Snooper’s Charter…Government publishes draft bill allowing snooping on all internet and mobile communications

Read more UK Government Watch at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See  article from  privacyinternational.org See  article from  publicaffairs.linx.net See Communications Capabilities briefing and summary of key issues [pdf] from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

The government has published a draft version of a bill that, if signed into law in its current form, would force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile phone network providers in Britain to installblack boxes in order to collect and store information on everyone’s internet and phone activity, and give the police the ability to self-authorise access to this information. However, the Home Office failed to explain whether or not companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter will be brought under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), and how they intend to deal with HTTPS encryption. Faith in the integrity of HTTPS encryption is what makes online banking and the entire e-commerce industry possible, and Google uses it to secure its Gmail service, as do most webmail providers. The need for easy access to Gmail has been one of the Home Office’s primary justifications for the Communications Bill, but technology experts are dubious as to whether it is possible to technically and lawfully break HTTPS on a nationwide scale. At this morning’s Home Office briefing, Director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism Charles Farr was asked about how the black box technology would handle HTTPS encryption. His only response was:It will. The draft Bill includes controversial measures to require network operators to acquire communications data relating to third party services — for example, requiring an ISP to discover and record when its customers post a message on a social networking site, and to which other user of the site that message was addressed. The Bill does not specify what data ISPs are to acquire, nor provide any limits; the requirements for ISPs are to be set out in Orders made by the Home Secretary at a later date. Writing in The Sun, Home Secretary Theresa May said: I just don’t understand why some people criticise these proposals. People have a right to privacy. But unless you are a criminal, then you’ve nothing to worry about from this new law. This isn’t a snoopers’ charter, it’s a criminals’ nightmare. At a press and MP briefing at Parliament today, Julian Huppert MP said that he couldn’t believe the bill could even be put before the House in its current form. David Davis MP remarked that, given that the RIPA process is already a disgrace , the Home Office should be introducing a bill that introduces warrant requirements to RIPA rather than making it even easier for the police to access citizens’ communications data. He also revealed that David Maclean, the most right-wing politician the Home Office ever saw , will be chairing the committee on the bill. Dr Gus Hosein, Executive Director of Privacy International, said: In the UK, we’ve historically operated under the presumption that the government has no business peering into the lives of citizens unless there is good reason to – that people are innocent until proven guilty. This legislation would reverse that presumption and fundamentally change the relationship between citizen and state, and their relationship with their internet and mobile service providers. Yet there are still big question marks over whether Facebook and Google will be brought under RIPA, and how far the government is willing to go in undermining internet security in order to fulfil its insatiable desire for data.

Stop Government Snooping…38 Degrees organise petition against government internet snooping

Read more Petitions and Campaigns at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See petition from secure.38degrees.org.uk

Dear David Cameron, Respect our privacy. Stop the internet and phone snooping plan. Don’t spy on our e-mail, phone and internet use Keep your election promise to reverse the rise of the surveillance state This is Britain, not China or Iran. We don’t want the government spying on our every move. …Sign the petition . 175000 signatures so far.

Open Rights Group Workshops…Learn about the government’s Snooper’s Charter and default blocking of websites for adults

Read more UK Government Watch at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See article from openrightsgroup.org

We’re running a series of free workshops over the next few weeks to help you learn about theSnooper’s Charter and censorship and practice lobbying your MP. Join us and become a digital rights champion! Here’s where we’ll be and when, with links to the Eventbrite pages where you can sign up: London , Wednesday, 20 June Edinburgh , Saturday 23 June Manchester , Wednesday 27 June Sheffield , Thursday 28 June Birmingham , Wednesday, 4 July Bristol , Saturday 7 July What’s happening? Open Rights Group needs your help to defeat the latest attacks on internet freedom! We need to convince MPs that they should oppose new proposals for more surveillance and censorship. These training sessions will help you learn about two of the biggest current digital rights issues. And we’ll help you practice how to discuss them with your MP. The training will last for around four hours. First we will give you a good background briefing on the issues and an overview of the campaigns. Then we will do some practical training on how to speak to your MP, and cover other campaigning ideas too. We’ll be covering two big topics: The Snoopers’ Charter - aka the Communications Data Bill – was announced in the Queen’s speech and is about to be published by the government. The bill will create new powers to intercept and collect information about who you talk to online. Your communications via Google, Facebook or Skype will now be open to what may be a large number of government officials. We want to see the powers to collect and access communications data tightened up, not extended ever further. Internet censorship . The government is considering whether Internet Service Providers should have to block websites that contain adult content by default, with an opt out for uncensored access. That would mean an infrastructure of censorship that could, through mistakes, abuse or mission creep, lead to more and more content being blocked for people in the UK. Our research on mobile Internet censorship recently showed how often the wrong websites can be filtered, for example. We want to prevent this further move towards private policing of the internet and free speech, and recommend better ways to help parents manage their children’s Internet access. You can help stop these proposals. And we are here to help you! You don’t need any previous knowledge of the issues or experience talking with your MP. Please join us. And tell your friends!

UK Government 2010-1984…The Queen’s Speech heralds a snooping law that the KGB would be proud of

Read more UK Government Watch at MelonFarmers.co.uk

You know that when the government blathers on about safeguards and scrutiny, they only mention this because there won’t be any. See article from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk See also ‘Snooper’s charter’ removed from crime bill in last-minute coalition talks from guardian.co.uk

My Government intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public, subject to scrutiny of draft clauses.So there we have it — the Communication Capabilities Development Programme will have it’s day in Parliament. We don’t know what the draft clauses will be or when we will see them, but the Government remains intent on pursuing legislation in the coming session of Parliament. The Home Office have been very good at saying what the problem is, but seem intent on keeping the technical details of what they are proposing secret. Is it any wonder that the public are scared by a proposal for online surveillance not seen in any other Western democracy. Update: Promises Promises From openrightsgroup.org The Snoopers’ Charter: the Communications Data Bill is about to be published by the government. When the coalition was elected, they promised that: We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason (1) Nick Clegg added: We won’t hold your internet and email records when there is just no reason to do so. (2) Now, the government is saying that companies like Facebook and Google must keep your email and messaging records for 12 months, whether or not you are under suspicion: and that the records (not the content) must be handed over on the say-so of a police officer. The government are asking for powers to intercept and collect information about who you talk to online by snooping on your Internet traffic, in case companies based outside the UK don’t agree to hand over your information. That makes us all a suspect. Instead of being under surveillance when there is evidence of wrongdoing, you will be under suspicion by default.

Against Massive Internet Snooping in the UK…2 petitions, perhaps the first of many

Read more UK Government Watch at MelonFarmers.co.uk

Scrap Plans to Monitor all Emails and Web Usage See petition from epetitions.direct.gov.uk Internet firms will be required to give intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications on demand, in real time. The Home Office says the move is key to tackling crime and terrorism. They have no right to attack our privacy, if the legislation goes through, Britain will be no different from regimes it criticises such as China and Iran. It would enable intelligence officers to identify who an individual or group is in contact with, how often and for how long. They would also be able to see which websites someone had visited. Government should scrap plans immediately. …Sign the petition Stop the government snooping on every email and Facebook message See petition from action.openrightsgroup.org Dear David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Theresa May, I do not want the government to try to intercept every UK email, facebook account and online communication. It would be pointless — as it will be easy for criminals to encrypt and evade — and expensive. It would also be illegal: mass surveillance would be a breach of our fundamental right to privacy. Please cancel the Communications Capabilities Development Plan. …Sign the petition