Well, this morning’s breakfast show interview was short and sweet. Probably the shortest interview I’ve ever done. We were through in about two minutes flat, which was quite a challenge as I’d picked a tricky subject this week and had eight pages of notes in front of me. Oh, well - it’s all useful background knowledge. I shall just have to use them as column fodder next month.

Of more concern is the flurry of news stories about the laws likely to be passed in the next couple of weeks, which will immediately remove a massive chunk of privacy rights from every British citizen. It’s all very well explained in a release from stand.org.uk (pasted below), but in brief it means that pretty much any official organisation you can imagine (and some others, including fire stations) can check out what you’ve been doing online, who you have been emailing, who has been emailing you, who you have been phoning etc etc etc

We did a piece on it on the show this evening, which lead to a listener call from a guy who thinks the sooner it’s passed, the sooner it will be abused and the sooner it will be revoked. It’s a nice idea but I’m not sure it’s entirely that simple.

I can’t help feeling, though, that regardless of what you think about the events of September 11 the authorities are using them as an excuse to pass laws that we otherwise would never have agreed to. If this had been suggested a year ago we would have been up in arms, but now it seems almost acceptable. Trouble is, once it’s passed it is going to be very difficult for it to be changed, revkoed or even weakened in the future, and we will be stuck with it.

A letter in Metro this morning illustrated the potential for abuse perfectly. They want to use it to investigate suspected terrorists - fine. But what about animal rights campaigners? They cause trouble, don’t they, so let’s monitor them, too. What about anti-capitalists? They have big demos every May. Better tap their mobile phones and keep an eye on their emails.

Hmmm… now gay people. Nasty big parade they have through the middle of London every summer. Attracts a lot of people from all around the country. Potential for trouble. Fine - add them to the list.

It could go on and on and on until eventually everybody who could possibly ever be a threat to the stability (and re-electability) of the government is under surveillance.

I interviewed Phil Zimmermann a year or so ago. He’s the guy who invented PGP, the software used to encrypt emails, and was then prosecuted for years by the American government because he gave it away for free. As far as they were concerned this constituted exporting arms. Very naughty. Eventually they had to drop their case, but it was a bit hairy for a while, and it looked as though he was going to be jailed for a very, very long time.

Anyhow, in this interview he said that everyone should routinely encrypt their emails. After all, you put your letters in an envelope, don’t you, and you wouldn’t dream of putting even something as simple as a letter to your parents through the post without packaging it up so the postman can’t read it, so why do you send emails unencrypted when it amounts to the same thing?

There is another argument for encrypting your email, though, if you oppose a law of this type, and that is that if everyone encrypted their messages then the authorities would never know whose messages contained something illegal (animal rights / anti capitalist propoganda etc) because as it stands currently it’s the encrypted messages that should theoretically be attracting the most attention.

Of course, this law, if it is passed, only really gives authorites the power to track the source and destinations of your communications rather than their specific contents, but considering many web addresses returned by search engines include your full search term it’s very easy to see what you’ve been looking at online.

Post Office To Steam Open Your History File [from stand.org.uk]

One of the more extreme powers the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) handed out two years ago let government agencies obtain “traffic data” without a judicial warrant.

Traffic data is best described as the writing on the envelope of a message, instead of its contents. It can be the list of phone numbers you have called in the last six months. Or a full list of Websites you have visited. Or the times you log on, and from where. Or who you e-mail, or what programs you’ve downloaded, or what newsgroups you read. Or the position of your cellphone last Tuesday at five.

Because the risk of abuse of this power (there’s no judicial oversight - all that’s needed is the permission of a suitably high-powered boss), those who could wield it were strictly limited. Only the police, Customs and Excise and the secret services were allowed access to traffic data in the original act.

Not any more.

On Friday, the Home Office petitioned parliament to add a vast array of organisations to that list. If they pass it, everyone from the DTI, any local authority, the Food Standards Agency, the Home Office themselves (of course), and staggeringly enough, Consignia. The final entry in the list says that “A Universal Service Provider within the meaning of the Postal Services Act 2000″ has the same power as the secret services to read your traffic data. There’s only one USP in Britain right now, and that’s the provider previously known as the Royal Mail.

If the idea that the Post Office has access to your web logs (access which would cost a competitive company millions, and would probably get them investigated by the Data Protection people), let alone every minor apparatchik on the block, you might want to kick up a fuss about this. It’s due to appear before MPs on June 18th, and the Lords a little after.

How do I find out more?

Read the Order before Parliament. It’s very short (although the list of allowed organisations is very long - two minutes should do it).

Flick through our quick notes on the original RIPA law. (The notes are based on an earlier draft, so the section numbers are a bit off. But you get the idea.)

What can I do?

Fax your MP now. The Order is to be debated next Tuesday, and these things are usually rubber-stamped. Tell your MP which groups you don’t want to be spied on by (list them all), and tell him why. Explain what traffic data means (your MP might not know how wide-ranging it is). Explain it in terms he or she can understand - if they’re a Conservative, explain how it’s government prying into people’s lives. If they’re Labour, talk about civil rights. If they’re Liberal, say what you like - the LibDems are usually down with this sort of nonsense. Ask for a reply.

It’ll take twenty minutes of your time. It’ll make a difference. Members of Parliament hate having this sort of wide-ranging power sneaked past them as much as you do. If you’re feeling a bit lazy today, you could forward this message to one of your more overactive friends. And then write your letter tomorrow.

It’s always interesting flicking through the TV channels on the studio television while we’re doing the show on Thursday evenings. Because we’re based in the ITN building you get about 60 feeds coming in from all around the world, including a live feed from the International Space Station. We watched them for an hour this evening doing something with nuts and bolts on the outside of the station, all trussed up in their space-suits. Everything seems to happen very slowly up there.

1. Cows in the kitchen
   I'm selling my flat. It's all but done and dusted, which means my post right now is an endless stream of questions and demands from...
   
   
2. Jubilee Walkway
   You can't work in London (or even visit) without spotting the Jubilee Walkway circles. Some of them - the original ones from 1977 not yet...
   
   
3. Election
   I am actually quite speechless after reading this story on the BBC News site about the BNP's election manifesto, which includes: Mr Griffin also wants...