International Law

Digital Economy Bill 2009 seeks to crush UK Internet Domain Registry industry with bureaucratic red tape and unfair legal costs

Posted on December 01, 2009
How much more damage can unelected Labour politicians like Mandelson do before the forthcoming General Election ? Quite a bit it seems, if you read the appalling Digital Economy Bill, published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which Mandelson is in charge of, but which he obviously does not even pretend to devote his attention to full time...

"JFL" provides some more details about his imprisonment for refusing to divulge his crytptographic keys under a RIPA Part III section 49 notice

Posted on November 29, 2009
"JFL" has emailed us with some more details about this worrying Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) section 49 case - see the article on The Register by Chris Williams - see UK jails schizophrenic for refusal to decrypt files) Having been contacted by "JFL", Spy Blog asked a few Questions - here are some edited and annotated quotations, omitting, for now, the names of the people mentioned by "JFL" , apart from the Judge, who is named in The Register article...

Forced into Prison / Mental Hospital for not revealing cryptographic keys to the Kafkaesque Police and (in)Justice system here in the United Kingdom

Posted on November 25, 2009
The UK based online IT industry publication, The Register reports on a story which shows that not only has this Labour government taken George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four as surveillance state policy plan, rather than as a dystopian warning, but they have also allowed a Kafkaesque securocacy and (in)justice system to use the full panoply of "anti-terrorism" national security powers against vulnerable members of society, without making us all any safer...

Bribery Bill 2009 clause 12 - some Secret Intelligence Service MI6 or Security Service MI5 exemptions, but why should Local Authority Trading Standards etc. ever be allowed to bribe anyone ?

Posted on November 20, 2009
Another bit of proposed legislation, which will hopefully be lost due to the forthcoming General Election, is the flawed Bribery Bill 2009 For some reason it has been introduced by Jack Straw's Ministry of (In)Justice in the House of Lords. Note that there are no provisions to strengthen the legislation against corrupt lobbying by Members of the House of Commons or of the House of Lords or of senior Whitehall Sir Humphreys...

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Manchester area post codes where the foolish can apply for an ID Card

Posted on November 19, 2009
The junior Home Office Minister Meg Hillier, who is at least as out of her depth about ID Cards and databases as her predecessors, has now signed the Statutory Instrument which kicks off a dubious small scale version of the National Identity Register, coming into force on the 30th November 2009, several years late...

Queen's Speech - "mobile phones in prisons" more useless, repetitive, legislation planned

Posted on November 18, 2009
Although we are slightly relieved that no Communications Data Bill has been sneaked into the Queen's Speech, as originally threatened by the disgraced former Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, this Labour Government simply cannot resist producing some more useless and repetitive legislation, as a public relations diversion to hide their failure to control aspects of modern technology...

Home Office summary of responses to the public consultation on "Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000: Consolidating orders and codes of practice"

Posted on November 05, 2009
The Home Office has published its summary of the responses to the public consultation Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000: Consolidating orders and codes of practice (1.7Mb .pdf) which ran from April to July. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000: consolidating orders and codes of practice - responses to the consultation (269Kb ...

United Kingdom (England & Wales) Census Day / Night - Saturday 27th March 2011 - will you boycott the intrusive, snooping questions ?

Posted on October 22, 2009
The Census is set to be inflicted on us on Census Day / Night - Saturday 27th March 2011 Since it has, unfortunately, become impossible to trust this or any future Government with our

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 conviction statistics

Posted on October 21, 2009
20 Oct 2009 : Column 1359W Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 Mrs. Iris Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been convicted of offences under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000; if he will commission research into the efficacy of the legislation; and if he will make a statement...

Does a Registered Post mass mailing in USA = Communications Data / Banking Secrecy law breach in Switzerland ?

Posted on October 18, 2009
Here is a reminder reminder that not all Communications Data or Communications Traffic Data is purely about electronic.communications like email or web page surfing or phone calls etc.. According to Reuters: UBS registered mail warns U.S. clients on tax: report Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:40am EDT (Reporting by Jonathan Lynn, editing by Will Waterman) GENEVA (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS AG warned U...

Non-reportable injunctions - Mr. Justice Tugendhat, Mr. Justice Sweeney and Mr. Justice Maddison

Posted on October 17, 2009
The now abandoned Trafigura / Carter-Ruck "super injunction" saga and its associated Streisand effect continues: This is the pathetic Government Written Answer to one of the Parliamentary Written Questions which were asked by Paul Farrelly MP at the same time as the one which Carter-Ruck attempted to suppress the reporting of: 15 Oct 2009 : Column 1010W [...

Carter-Ruck's Trafigura scandal non-reportable super- injunctions - Mr. Justice Maddison and Mr.Justice Sweeney

Posted on October 17, 2009
WIkileaks have published a copy of the extraordinary "super-injunction" High Court Order 11th September 2009 Order by Justice Maddison in the Trafigura toxic waste dumping scandal. Minton report secret injunction gagging The Guardian on Trafigura, 11 Sep 2009 So far, they have not yet published the Order by Mr...

More illegal Mobile Phones in Prisons, more re-cycled Answers and Policies from the Ministry of (In)Justice

Posted on October 15, 2009
Is the Ministry of Justice pretending to be "environmentally friendly", by re-cycling Parliamentary Written Answers, or are they simply re-cycling their ineffective "do nothing" policies ? Compare and contrast these two Written Answers about the ongoing scandal of Mobile Phones in Prisons: The earlier Answer by David Hanson (now the replacement for Tony McNulty at the Home Office) gave totals of Mobile Phones and SIM cards seized in 2006, 2007 and 2008 for each prison, but does not bother to total them up, so we have done so, in order to compare them with the mid 2008 to mid 2009 figure trotted out six months after the fact in the latest Answer, which only breaks out a High Security estate figure from the total...

Manchester Airport "child porn" Rapiscan X-ray scanner trial - why now, after all the other trials at airports or railway stations failed ?

Posted on October 13, 2009
The Daily Mail and the

China tries to block Tor

Posted on September 28, 2009
The official Tor blog reports that:

Compulsory dog ID microchips plan - Yet Another National Database of human names and addresses is not acceptable

Posted on September 28, 2009
The Daily Telegraph has a disturbing report about an alleged compulsory plan to insert RFID microchip transponders in all dogs in the UK, and Yet Another National Database of human names, addresses and telephone numbers, which will not solve the underlying problems, and which will pose a Privacy and Security risk to millions of innocent people...

Castrol roadside billboard ANPR snoopvertising - another DVLA database privacy scandal

Posted on September 27, 2009
Various motoring blogs etc.(e.g.

David Mery gets an apology for his unlawful arrest after 4 years - it should have been 4 days at most

Posted on September 26, 2009
It has taken over 4 years for David Mery and his wife to receive an apology from the Police: On 28th July 2005, I was unlawfully arrested at Southwark tube station when attempting to take the tube after work to meet my wife. Chief Superintendent Wayne Chance, Metropolitan Police Service Borough Commander for Southwark, has eventually apologised to my wife and I for their actions and the trauma it caused us: I would like to apologise on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service for the circumstances that arose on 28 July 2005 including your unlawful arrest, detention and search of your home...

RIPA Commissioner and illegal Property Interference by the Environment Agency

Posted on September 21, 2009
If the Rt Hon Sir Stephen Rose had been more transparent and explicit in his (censored) Annual Report of the Chief Surveillance Commissioner to the Prime Minister and to Scottish Ministers for 2008-200 (.pdf) under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and the Police Act 1997, which fails to "name and shame" the culprits at the "public authorities" who have been acting illegally, the perhaps today's story in the Daily Telegraph, about the increasingly meddlesome and authoritarian function creeping "Executive Non-departmental Public Body ", the Environment Agency, would already have been dealt with over 2 years ago...

International Action Day "Freedom not Fear 2009 - Stop Surveillance Mania!" on 12 September 2009

Posted on September 15, 2009
Details of UK protests (and others mostly around the European Union), set for Sunday 12th September 2009, can be found via FreedomNotFear2009.org There is also the German manifesto (in English, very similar to last year's) at the www.freedom-not-fear...

How can we have confidence that the HMRC online tax return system is safe to use ?

Posted on September 14, 2009
The Mail on Sunday reported : Hackers steal £1m in online tax scam By Stephen Condron and Christopher Leake Last updated at 9:11 AM on 13th September 2009 Police are investigating how criminals managed to steal £1million from the taxman by accessing a Government computer system and granting themselves rebates...

Sir Joseph Pilling appointed as National Identity Scheme Commissioner - how can a former Whitehall "Sir Humphrey" be "independent" of the Home Office ?

Posted on September 14, 2009
The Home Office Identity and Passport Service has announced: Home Secretary appoints first Identity Commissioner 14 September 2009 The first Identity Commissioner, Sir Joseph Pilling, was confirmed today by the Home Secretary Alan Johnson. The first Identity Commissioner, Sir Joseph Pilling, was confirmed today by the Home Secretary Alan Johnson...

Why is there a need for a "Big Brother Watch" campaign by the TaxPayers' Alliance ?

Posted on September 06, 2009
The Sunday Times carries this interesting announcement by the TaxPayers' Alliance, of a new campaign called "Big Brother Watch". Their website www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk currently states that this is due to launch in October. The fight against the "surveillance state" is obviously necessary, but what exactly can this new campaign achieve, that the existing campaign groups could not do just as well, or much better, if they had some more money ? From The Sunday Times September 6, 2009 Think tank: Be warned, Big Brother, I've got my eye on you Matthew Elliott begins a campaign against our surveillance state Matthew Elliott In June, Stewart Smith, who suffers from arthritis, was handed a £50 fixed penalty notice after dropping a £10 note in the street...

News of the World politics blog: alleged CIA intelligence sharing threat and the Operation Pathway intelligence failure

Posted on September 06, 2009
How many people read the News of the World tabloid newspaper ? Quite a lot on Sundays, when the weekly paper edition is published . How many people read the News of the World's multi-authored "politics blog" on a Saturday ? At guess, hardly anyone at all...

MI5 Security Service web site re-fresh - shadow people and foreign language version inconsistency

Posted on September 04, 2009
The MI5 Security Service website design was officially re-launched on the 1st of September 2009. - New version of Security Service website We have also introduced a new Freephone number (0800 111 4645) to make it easier for members of the public to contact us to report suspected threats to national security...

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Commencement No. 3) Order 2009 - who will be apponted as the National Identity Scheme Commissioner ?

Posted on September 01, 2009
The counterproductive and enormously expensive Labour government plan for a compulsory national centralised biometric database i.e. the National Identity Scheme, is creeping slowly onwards, regardless of all the criticisms, and the utter lack of a detailed technical specification or a detailed business plan for the scheme, even after 7 years of dithering by the Home Office, which has cost hundreds of millions of pounds so far...

ACPO eCrime Strategy - no clarity on international Extradition, nor on Collateral Damage to the innocent caused by eCrime investigations

Posted on August 27, 2009
The unaccountable private company with a monopoly on public Police policies, Association of Chief Police Officer of England, Wales & Northern Ireland the ACPO e-Crime Strategy August 2009 (.doc 267Kb) What this document glosses over is the reduction of resources being allocated to fighting "eCrime", even compared with the inadequate, but now defunct National Hi-Tech Crime Unit...

Climate Camp Twits - 6consulting and the Metropolitan Police Service

Posted on August 25, 2009
Another aspect of the political snooping which is being aimed at the Climate Camp political protestors and their sympathisers seems to be the new emphasis on Twitter and other Social Media like Facebook, Flickr and Blog monitoring and snooping The Metropolitan Police seem to have been advised to set up their own Twitter feed However this is a typical NuLabour centralised control freak mode i...

Snooping on the Climate Camp Swoopers via SMS text messages

Posted on August 25, 2009
Tomorrow sees the start of the Climate Camp protest / demo / hippy / anarchist festival, which is being held at a some supposedly as yet still secret location in London. What in earth are they going to do for a whole week ? How much of the detailed scientific and political power arguments about "Climate Change" will actually be mentioned in the press and media coverage of this event ? Spy Blog is interested in the use and possible abuse of SMS text messaging to help organise this event, which, like the G20 protests seems to be trying to organise / manipulate several groups of people to gather at symbolic rallying points , most of which are associated with Climate Change "baddies" like oil company headquarters, bio-fuel and carbon trading speculators etc...

International Action Day "Freedom not Fear 2009 - Stop Surveillance Mania!" on 12 September 2009

Posted on August 16, 2009
Details of UK protests (and others mostly around the European Union), set for Sunday 12th September 2009, can be found via FreedomNotFear2009.org There is also the German manifesto (in English, very similar to last year's) at the www.freedom-not-fear...

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