[E-privacy] Fw: Criminal Law Review tears strips off RIP Act

[Giuseppe Bellazzi]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yaman Akdeniz" <lawya at lucs-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk>
To: <cyber-rights-UK at mail.cyber-rights.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 10:01 PM
Subject: Criminal Law Review tears strips off RIP Act


> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19276.html
> Criminal Law Review tears strips off RIP Act
> By Kieren McCarthy Posted: 29/05/2001 at 16:10 GMT
>
> The academic paper Criminal Law Review has laid into the widely
> criticised RIP Act, arguing that it "falls far short" of its intended aim.
>
> In what is an unusual departure from dry objectivity, the article -
> called "BigBrother.gov.uk - State surveillance in the age of information
> and rights" - makes several damning conclusions over the legislation
> that was drafted to keep up with modern electronic communication.
>
> We've been saying it for ages, but an independent review of the law
> also decides that the RIP Act allows for agencies to "snoop randomly
> and routinely" - something, it says, that may breach both the Data
> Protection Act and the Human Rights Act.
>
> The article speaks of "substantial defects" in RIPA. The removal of
> judges in the approval process for tapping because it is
> "inappropriate" in cases of national security and economic well-being,
> for example, is labelled "wholly spurious".
>
> It is "disingenuous" to set up legislation that concerns itself with the
> minority of cases rather than the majority, the article argues. Paranoid,
> more like. Or authoritarian. The fact that people being investigated are
> never informed of it "decreases substantially the chances of abuse ever
> being uncovered". The criteria enabling government agencies to snoop
> on people are "unduly expansive".
>
> No backup is given to privileged material - meaning information that is
> protected in law, like what is said in the Houses of Parliament or a
> contemporaneous write-up of a court case. The Act doesn't account
> for all relevant examples of interception - for example foreign
> intelligence agencies. It "potentially empowers an alarmingly large
> range of public agencies to snoop... and for a rambling array of
> reasons".
>
> Definitions in the Act are described as "somewhat ambiguous".
> Safeguards are insufficient and inadequate. Assumptions over guilt are
> "unfair". And the concerns that existed before the Act existed are still
> there after RIP "or are even amplified".
>
> The report also gives extensive coverage to others' criticisms and
> concerns over what the RIP Act may enable the government, police
> and intelligence agencies to get away with.
>
> The report was actually in the February edition of the journal but
> being a somewhat specialised organ, we haven't heard of it until now.
> It is well worth a read, disturbing as it is. A spokeswoman for the
> publication was less than helpful and suggested readers may want to
> go to a library to pick it up. However, we've found that the Cyber-
> rights and cyber-liberties boys have been there before us and got
> permission to offer a pdf format of the article. It's here.
>
> http://www.cyber-rights.org/documents/crimlr.pdf
>
>
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