Rather than respond to CoffeeHousers in the comment thread of my blog earlier, I thought I’d do it in a post (and also take in some of the comments from Twitter and my Telegraph piece). I’ve been accused of “starting to sound like a leftie” – and for what it’s worth, I don’t sign up to the David Davis civil liberties agenda. Not all of it, anyway. I’m all for snooping if it helps catch murderers or jihadis. But what I don’t like is this age-old politicians trick of pushing a whole load of powers through in the name of ‘national security’ then, next thing you know, the council is trawling your email data. Anyway, to the comments:-
1) ‘Fraser Nelson, like Horatio, chooses to look with the wrong eye – it’s all down to the EU…’ Boudicca et al, I’m all up for putting blame at the EU’s door when needed (and my brilliant colleague James Delingpole has written about it here) but I’m afraid the truth is worse. Yes there is an EU Directive which obliges mobile phone companies not to destroy itemised phone bills for a period of 6-24 months. The UK government chose 12 months and, I understand, is about to change to make Skype, BlackBerry etc keep the a message log (who texted who, when) for 12 months. The EU Regulation also makes loose reference to internet traffic,which the UK government intends to define as an obligation for all UK emailcompanies to keep records for 12 months. So the Home Office intends to go farfurther than the EU Directive requires.
2) ‘The massive cost of this database will have to be passed on by ISP’sto the public’ says Newsbot9. Not so: the Home Office would reimburse the costs, so they’d be shouldered by the taxpayer. The email companies aren’t happy about this at all, and there’s a suspicion in government that they’ve been briefing all this.
3) It’s important to rememberthat a request for more national security powers either by the police or the intelligence services puts the government on the horns of a dilemma. Which is why I think it’s significant that (as I disclose
in the column) the head of the Met has written a letter to Cameron saying that lives will be lost if the laws aren’t reformed – and that this letter has not been passed to the PM. As
soon as Cameron reads it, he’s in a very difficult position. If a terrorist bomb goes off, does he want a letter to surface suggesting he’s been too soft? Who’d want to be in that
position?
4) ‘If the government wants toinvestigate someone, it can already get a god-dammed warrant’ says Fred0. He’s right, and its disingenuous to suggest (as I’m afraid
Theresa May does) that new laws are somehow needed to allow GCHQ to investigate Skype, BB Messenger etc. The law currently allows spies to intercept anything that can be categorized as a
‘communication’ as long as they have proper authorization.
5) Town Hall snoops previously abused anti-terror laws by asking someone in the local authority for permission to snoop. Under new laws, the government would require them to go to a Magistrate’s Court. This is a welcome development, which the government could do a lot better in communicating.
6) Don’t terrorists use email? I’m not a jihadi hunter, but I do read the reports on tradecraft on both sides of the Atlantic and. It seems to be fairly widely agreed that serious terrorists do not leave an email trail. Five years ago they had switched to a different system, saving an email in the ‘draft’ folder then having the other guy log in and check the outbox. You can now alter a file in a Dropbox-style filesharing system, knowing that the spooks only have legal clearance to intercept ‘communication’. Also elaborate 9-11 style plots are onthe way out and what police call ‘just do it’ plots are on the rise: more amateur, but harder to intercept. Avast databank of every email sent by every British account will be of huge use to certain people (including tax inspectors) but of limited use to anti-terror police.
7) ‘Cheerleading for rubberduck Dave as per bleeding usual, Fraser?’ Vulture, I’m not one for the pom poms. But Cameron is very good in a crisis, almost asgood as he is at getting into crises. He’ll have to take personal charge of this, because DD/Shami double act is landing direct hits all over the place.Government departments are at war so the machine can’t cope. From what I know of Cameron, I’d say his instincts are sound and he can strike the right balancebetween liberty and security.
8) ‘It’s outrageous that Binyam Mohamed is getting taxpayers money’ says Cogito Ergosum – a point we ought not to overlook. It doesn’t take ‘secret trials’ to end this outrage, just the ability to see off the Mohameds of this world with private hearings, as are used in (open) deportation cases. As I say in my Telegraph piece, it’s now standard operating procedurefor a terror suspect with British links to sue MI6 using the so-called ‘Norwich Pharma’ loophole deployed by Mohamed’s lawyers. Closing this loophole can be done without the other stuff, though.
9) ‘Do we seriously think that paedophiles and other criminals, such as drug dealers, do not already use ‘cloud’ databases? The primary beneficiary, one suspects, will be HMRC’. I sympathise with Noa, this massive email databank will primarily catch out the unsuspecting, not the hardcore criminal. Even drug dealers in The Wire knew to ‘change up’ their pay-as-you-go phones ever week or so. ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Tax Evader’doesn’t make for a very sexy government mission, but I do suspect this is a large part of the mission.
10) As Matthew d’Ancona highlights, the coming Bill will be a significant extension to existing powers – contrary to what some in government are saying. It will mandate UK email companies to set up and maintain a massive log of all emails their clients send. It will mandate mobile phone companies to keep logs of phone calls made by those with unlimited tariffs, which they don’t do right now. You can argue that these powers are needed, and would be a powerful new tool to help police catch murderers etc. But you can’t argue, as some ministers do, that it’s not an extension of existing powers.
UPDATE: Vulture says I seem suspiciously ‘well-briefed’ on this – if only. This column was an utter nightmare to research. I spoke to eight government officials, all of whom had been briefed about only part of the picture. I’m grateful to all of them for speaking to me; a less open government would not return a journalist’s calls. But it’s pretty clear that the Home Office/Ministry of Justice split has made it harder for government to respons in a co-ordinated way. The fact that the head of the Met has written a ‘blood-curdling’ letter to Cameron about all this, and that the letter hasn’t been shown to the PM yet, is an indicator of the disarray – and, ergo, the government’s vulnerability to attack on a hideously complex topic. Anyway, the great thing about blogs is that you can use material you couldn’t fit into a column, and carry on the conversation with readers in a way you couldn’t in the old days, so I’m genuinely grateful for CoffeeHousers’ typically intelligent and provocative responses.
One final point. Coffee House is about debate, and the evolution of the blogsphere means the debate is widened to new platforms. Should we baristas at CoffeeHouse include Twitter comments when we reply? Or just stick to those posted under the blog? Those of us behind the counter are, as ever, at your service – do do say what you think.
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