Forwarded from "Interesting People"
--
Perry Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
"Ask not what your country can force other people to do for you..."
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Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 07:34:03 -0700
From: Dave Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: IP: Sunday Times (London) 30th April: "MI5 builds new centre to
read e-mails on the net"
>From: "Caspar Bowden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/04/30/stinwenws01034.html
>MI5 builds new centre to read e-mails on the net
>
>Nicholas Rufford
>
>MI5 is building a new =A325m e-mail surveillance centre that will have the
>power to monitor all e-mails and internet messages sent and received in
>Britain. The government is to require internet service providers, such as
>Freeserve and AOL, to have "hardwire" links to the new computer facility so
>that messages can be traced across the internet.
>
>The security service and the police will still need Home Office permission
>to search for e-mails and internet traffic, but they can apply for general
>warrants that would enable them to intercept communications for a company=
or
>an organisation.
>
>The new computer centre, codenamed GTAC - government technical assistance
>centre - which will be up and running by the end of the year inside MI5's
>London headquarters, has provoked concern among civil liberties groups.
>"With this facility, the government can track every website that a person
>visits, without a warrant, giving rise to a culture of suspicion by
>association," said Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for=
Information
>Policy Research.
>
>The government already has powers to tap phone lines linking computers, but
>the growth of the internet has made it impossible to read all material. By
>requiring service providers to install cables that will download material=
to
>MI5, the government will have the technical capability to read everything
>that passes over the internet.
>
>Home Office officials say the centre is needed to tackle the use of the
>internet and mobile phone networks by terrorists and international crime
>gangs.Charles Clark, the minister in charge of the spy centre project, said
>it would allow police to keep pace with technology.
>
>"Hardly anyone was using the internet or mobile phones 15 years ago," a=
Home
>Office source said. "Now criminals can communicate with each other by a=
huge
>array of devices and channels and can encrypt their messages, putting them
>beyond the reach of conventional eavesdropping."
>
>There has been an explosion in the use of the internet for crime in Britain
>and across the world, leading to fears in western intelligence agencies=
that
>they will soon be left behind as criminals abandon the telephone and resort
>to encrypted e-mails to run drug rings and illegal prostitution and
>immigration rackets.
>
>The new spy centre will decode messages that have been encrypted. Under new
>powers due to come into force this summer, police will be able to require
>individuals and companies to hand over computer "keys", special codes that
>unlock scrambled messages.
>
>There is controversy over how the costs of intercepting internet traffic
>should be shared between government and industry. Experts estimate that the
>cost to Britain's 400 service providers will be =A330m in the first year.
>Internet companies say that this is too expensive, especially as many are
>making losses.
>
>About 15m people in Britain have internet access. Legal experts have warned
>that many are unguarded in the messages they send or the material they
>download, believing that they are safe from prying eyes.
>
>"The arrival of this spy centre means that Big Brother is finally here,"
>said Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes. "The balance between the
>state and individual privacy has swung too far in favour of the state."
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