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Nizkor Int. Human Rights Team
1. NEW BRITISH CYBERSPY AGENCY CREATED
Cybercops Arrest Online Liberty
Civil liberties are already being eroded by efforts to tackle computer
crime, MPs and cyber-liberty campaigners have warned.
They say laws passed to ease the task facing the new high-tech crime
unit are in danger of riding roughshod over online privacy.
The MPs said the agency the UK Government set up to ensure online rights
were respected was proving an "inadequate safeguard". They also warned
that unless the government moves swiftly to improve its track record it
could find itself open to legal challenges under human rights legislation.
CRIMINAL LIFE ONLINE
This week, Home Secretary Jack Straw officially launched the National
Hi-Tech Crime Unit which will tackle the growing numbers of criminals
that use computers and the net to commit crimes.
Plans to set up the unit were first announced last year, since when
officers have been recruited and its network of links with other forces
have been put in place. But both MPs and civil liberty campaigners are
concerned that investigations run by officers in the new unit could
infringe net users' rights to privacy.
Many of the new powers that law enforcement agencies can call on to
tackle computer crimes were granted in the controversial Regulation of
Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act.
BLACK BOXES
This Act has been dubbed a "snoopers charter" by civil liberty
campaigners who say powers to intercept electronic communications are
too wide-ranging and too lightly regulated.
The Act sanctioned the creation of the National Technical Assistance
Centre (NTAC) that will have permanent links to Britain's internet
connection companies, making it easy to intercept almost anything
passing across the net links of these firms.
NTAC will be sited at Thames House on Millbank in London. So far,
discussions are continuing as to how to build the black boxes that will
dip into data streams and pull out the information the cybercops want.
To allay these fears the Government created the Investigatory Powers
Tribunal to act as a court of appeal for anyone who believes that
investigating officers have unlawfully intercepted their communications
when collecting evidence.
LIMITED APPEAL
But this week, a report written by members of the Commons Intelligence
and Security Committee (ISC) echoed the fears of civil liberty groups
and strongly criticised the tribunal.
The report expressed the committee's concerns that the tribunal was
unable to do its job properly, and noted that "for a significant period
in 2000 the tribunal did not have sufficient secretariat to enable it
even to open the mail, let alone process and investigate complaints".
During a debate on the report ISC member Alan Beith said it was
"ludicrous" that such an important tribunal was so poorly staffed. "The
several bodies involved are dependent on a tiny support structure which
is quite incapable of carrying out the job," he said. "We are not
providing a safeguard that should be there."
Civil liberty campaigners share the fears of the ISC Committee. Caspar
Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, said
it did not augur well for the future of civil liberties online if the
tribunal was unable to do its job when its workload was so light.
He said that, according to government figures, in the last 15 years the
forerunners of the tribunal had considered 568 complaints but
investigated only eight.
Yaman Akdeniz, founder of the Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties pressure
group and a researcher at the Leeds University cyberlaw unit, said: "I
don't think the tribunal has much power and it remains to be seen how
much teeth it has.
"It is good that the law enforcement agencies are getting co-ordinated
and organised against technology crime activities," he said, "but this
partnership could turn ISPs into an arm of the law enforcement agencies
because there are a lot of requirements on them for data collection and analysis."
[Source: BBC News - By BBC News Online technology correspondent Mark Ward - 18Apr01]
2. EURO HEARING ON ECHELON SURVEILLANCE: MORE DETAILS MAY SOON BE REVEALED ABOUT THE SUPER-SECRET GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
A committee of European Parliament members will soon visit the United
States in an attempt to discover more details about ECHELON. ECHELON is
popularly used to describe a system that is designed to intercept
communications from around the world. It is supposedly operated by the
United States National Security Agency in conjunction with several other
intelligence agencies. Reports suggest that ECHELON is capable of
intercepting e-mail messages, faxes, and telephone conversations.
Fears about possible ECHELON privacy abuses led the European Parliament
to form a temporary investigatory committee. At a committee hearing held
a few weeks ago, several witnesses expressed concern about ECHELON's
potential threat to individual rights. One of them, Yaman Akdeniz from
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties UK (a GILC member), noted that "[i]f the
current allegations are true, all law abiding European citizens and
companies are at risk of being monitored every day without any legal
basis. ... [W]e are particularly concerned about the lack of democratic
oversight on data being intercepted, stored and processed with systems
like Echelon."
Afterwards, members of the EP panel decided to visit the United States
on a fact-finding mission that will include discussions with various
U.S. politicians and intelligence officials. Marc Rotenberg, executive
director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC-a GILC
member), welcomed the move as "a very important step. It's a proactive
effort by government officials to address the problem of international
surveillance." The visit is scheduled to take place the week of May 8, 2001.
- For more on the EP members' visit to the United States, read Declan
McCullagh, "Euros Continue Echelon Probe," Wired News, Apr. 24, 2001.
Documents of the EP Temporary Committee on ECHELON are available at: http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/committees/temp/20010322/TEMP20010322.htm
[Source: GILC Alert - Volume 5, Issue 3 - 04May01]
3. ECHELON HEARING LEAVES "MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS"
WASHINGTON -- Called upon to testify on the secret surveillance system
ECHELON before the House Intelligence Committee, CIA Director George
Tenet and NSA Director Michael Hayden made a rare public appearance on
Wednesday, April 12. Revealing nothing except their usual position of
neither confirming nor denying the existence of ECHELON, Hayden and
Tenet left Representatives with, in the words of Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA),
"more questions than answers."
The hearing was held to deal with credible reports that suggest a global
electronic surveillance system -- known by the code name of "ECHELON" --
is capturing satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic
communications worldwide. Some sources have claimed that ECHELON sifts
through an estimated 90 percent of all traffic that flows through the
Internet. Much is still unknown, however, about these searches, which
apparently allow security agencies to use sophisticated filtering
technology to sort through conversations, faxes and emails.
The House Intelligence Committee intended the hearing to help ensure
that ECHELON does not circumvent any requirement in federal law that the
government obtain a warrant from a court before it eavesdrops on a
conversation to, from, or within the United States. Unfortunately, Tenet
and Hayden disputed all charges. Unsatisfied with the testimony of the
CIA and NSA, Rep. Barr said: "Our citizens are left with a feeling of
unease that is unhealthy both to our intelligence community as well as
to our citizens themselves."
[Source: American Civil Liberties Union - ACLU - 13Apr01]
4. DUTCH GOVERNMENT AND ISP'S REACH COMPROMISE ON INTERCEPTION OF THE INTERNET
New organisation will manage the interception equipment and check the legality of interception orders.
Dutch Internet service providers and the government have reached an
agreement about the way the ISP's will fulfill their interception
obligations. The ISP's will found a common organisation, which will
manage the interception equipment and check the legality of interception orders.
The new Telecommunications Act that came into force on 15 December 1998
extended the compulsory obligation to intercept messages for telephone
companies to include Internet service providers (ISP) and other telecom
providers. Internet providers were granted temporary exemption from the
mandatory installation of interception equipment, but were ordered to
comply with all the regulations by August 2000. The providers had not
had enough time to prepare for the installation of the necessary
equipment and besides, the technical, financial and judicial
consequences were not entirely clear. Later, the Dutch service providers
were granted another year to resolve the problems. The new deadline was fixed at 15th April.
In February of this year however, the Dutch providers announced [0] that
the new deadline was unrealistic. They claim there were still no clear
technical specifications for the way in which intercepted traffic has to
be delivered to the police. Therefore manufacturers of Internet
interception equipment couldn't develop the proper installations. 'This
indistinctness has resulted in a lack of relevant offers from which
Internet Service Providers can choose,' stipulated the providers in a
letter to the Ministry of Transport and Waterways.
They also pointed again at the differences between Dutch and European
requirements for the interception of Internet traffic. 'The Dutch
government has chosen to implement the interception obligation at a time
when the European interception standard still has to be completed. Most
other European countries wait for that standard, before they compel
their providers to make their systems interceptable.'
Last week the Dutch ISP's claimed that they had reached a compromise
with the government. The providers will found a common organisation,
which is going to manage the interception equipment. Within six to nine
months the providers should be able to fulfil their interception
obligations. According to the director of the Dutch organisation of
Internet service providers NLIP, Hans Leemans, his organisation was told
informally by governmental officials that they would accept the crossing
of the official deadline.
Buying and managing the interception equipment together will reduce the
costs of fulfilling the interception obligation. This was one of the
main problems for Dutch Internet service providers. The providers
claimed a third of the Internet providers were expected to face
bankruptcy as a result of the high interception costs.
The interception equipment has three parts: a black box which makes the
interception possible, a sniffer to trace e-mail and websurfing, and a
box which encrypts the intercepted material and transmits it in a common
format to the authorities. This last box is according to Leemans the
most expensive part of the equipment.
Providers now will transmit the intercepted material to the common
organisation, where the material is encrypted and transmitted to the
authorities. The common organisation will also check the legality of the
interception orders and send them to the providers. In this way
providers don't have to check themselves each interception order.
It is still not clear how many interception orders are to be expected.
According to Leemans the authorities didn't give a clear statement on
this subject. The Dutch privacy watchdog Bits of Freedom expects a huge
rise in interception orders, now the technical possibilities are finally
finished. Bits of Freedom also states that the new common 'interception
organisation' will play a crucial role.
'This organisation will review the interception orders. When the
government has a big influence on this organisation, or the persons
working there will be too eager to prove interception orders, it means
the creation of a giant backdoor to Internet. Much will rely on the
transparency and accountability of this organisation.'
[Source: Jelle van Buuren - 25Apr01 (by way of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign -GILC)]
RELATED LINKS:
EP Temporary Committee on the ECHELON interception system: Documents available (Draft Convention on Cyber Crime included) - http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/committees/temp/default_en.htm
Official homepage of the UK Criminal Justice and Police bill - http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/cjp/cjpmain.htm
Global Internet Liberty Campaign - GILC - http://www.gilc.org/
"An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control". Scientific and Technological Options Assessment - STOA. 06jan98 - http://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm
Background information on ECHELON at: http://www.echelonwatch.org
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