CyberLaw Blog

Archive for October 5th, 2008

There’s no hiding place as spy HQ plans to see all – Times Online

From The Sunday Times, October 5, 2008 (David Leppard)

Every call you make, every e-mail you send, every website you visit – I’ll be watching you.

That is the hope of Sir David Pepper who, as the director of GCHQ, the government’s secret eavesdropping agency in Cheltenham, is plotting the biggest surveillance system ever created in Britain.

From his office in the agency’s famous “doughnut” building, Pepper is masterminding an innocent-sounding project called the Interception Modernisation Programme.

The scope of the project – classified top secret – is said by officials to be so vast that it will dwarf the estimated £5 billion ministers have set aside for the identity cards programme. It is intended to fight terrorism and crime. Civil liberties groups, however, say it poses an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary citizens’ lives.

Aimed at placing a “live tap” on every electronic communication in Britain, it will dwarf other “big brother” surveillance projects such as the number plate recognition system and the spread of CCTV.

Pepper and his opposite number at MI6, Sir John Scarlett, are facing opposition from mandarins in the Treasury and Cabinet Office who fear both its cost and ethical implications.

The spy bosses say a central database is essential to “capture” the array of communications between terrorists planning to attack Britain. Draft e-mails, chatroom discussions and internet browsing on encrypted jihadist websites are the preferred forums for Al-Qaeda cells to plan their attacks, they say. However, other officials and many in the business and academic community are wary.
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Government will spy on every call and e-mail – Times Online

From The Sunday Times, October 5, 2008 (David Leppard)

Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project.

Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers – thought to be BT and Vodafone. BT has nearly 5m internet customers.

Ministers are braced for a backlash similar to the one caused by their ID cards programme. Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “Any suggestion of the government using existing powers to intercept communications data without public discussion is going to sound extremely sinister.”

MI5 currently conducts limited e-mail and website intercepts which are approved under specific warrants by the home secretary.

Further details of the new plan will be unveiled next month in the Queen’s speech.

The Home Office stressed no formal decision had been taken but sources said officials had made clear that ministers had agreed “in principle” to the programme.

Officials claim live monitoring is necessary to fight terrorism and crime. However, critics question whether such a vast system can be kept secure. A total of 57 billion text messages were sent in the UK last year – 1,800 every second.

Porn posted on Damilola web forum: “A website dedicated to murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor has had pornographic links posted on it, it is revealed.”

(Via BBC News.)

Eurasia Daily Monitor: Turkish authorities step up censorship of Internet web sites

By Gareth Jenkins, Friday, October 3, 2008

In the early hours of October 4, 2005, Turkey officially began accession negotiations with the EU. Over the previous four years, in order to secure a date for the opening of negotiations, successive Turkish governments had eased many of the restrictions on freedom of expression in the country. Since October 2005, however, the process has ground to a halt. Indeed, in some areas, it appears to have gone into reverse, particularly in the increasing attempts to censor the Internet.

The Turkish authorities have long sought to block Internet users in Turkey from accessing websites associated with militant groups that espouse violence, such as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Over the last 18 months, however, there has been a rapid rise in the censorship of websites, purely because they contain material that expresses values or opinions deemed unsuitable for the Turkish public.

Until May 2007, there was no legal framework in Turkey specifically designed to regulate the content of Internet websites. In practice, the judicial system tended to apply the same laws that were used to regulate traditional media outlets such as newspapers and television channels. On May 4, 2007, however, the Turkish parliament passed Law No. 5651, which was specifically designed to regulate Internet content and prevent websites from being used for crimes such as “encouraging suicide,” “the sexual exploitation of children,” “facilitating the use of narcotics,” “obscenity,” “prostitution,” and “gambling” (Law No. 5651 of May 4, 2007, published in the Official Gazette No. 26530 of May 23, 2007). The law also provided for the prevention of access to websites that violated other Turkish laws, such as anti-terrorism legislation or the law that forbids insulting the memory of the Turkish Republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (Law No. 5816 of July 25, 1951, published in the Official Gazette No. 7872 of July 31, 1951). In addition, under Article 24 of the Turkish Civil Code (Turkish Ministry of Justice website, www.adalet.gov.tr), individuals can apply for access to be blocked to a website that they feel is “infringing on their personal rights.”
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