Surveillance

Christopher Parsons: (British Columbia, University of Victoria): There are plans to deploy ‘black boxes’ in UK ISPs’ networking hubs so that the government can capture and record every website that UK citizens visit. A similar operation is in full swing in the United States, where the NSA has hooked up their own ‘black boxes’ to American Internet Service Providers’ (ISPs) networks to capture ‘questionable content’ passing through these networks. Unlike the Americans, who only examine questionable content, the UK government is planning to develop a database to hold the contents of all messages passing along their nations’ telecommunications networks.

While this issue has recently been sensationalized in the media, I have yet to find a source addressing the actual technologies that will (likely) drive these ‘black boxes’. I want to address that deficiency, calling attention to the Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technologies that will presumably be responsible for examining, categorizing, and heuristically evaluating the data flowing across British ISPs’ networks. In this piece, I want to briefly explain how DPI technology works, its technical limitations, and modes of actively evading its surveillance powers. Evading DPI-enabled surveillance is essential to participate in free, unsurveyed discourse in the contemporary digital environments that Western citizens find themselves within.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): There's still time to get your camera out if you want to take part in a major Europe-wide protest against the database state this Saturday:

NO2ID have teamed up with the Open Rights Group to show Parliament the 'Big Picture' by constructing a giant image made out of thousands of pictures taken by UK citizens of surveillance state ephemera. YOU can join this protest from anywhere in the UK by simply sending us a photo. We would like you to send us a picture of 'the database state' in YOUR life. We want images of the signs of mass surveillance, and any form of intrusive ID or state control - cameras, cards, scanners, forms, whatever you like.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The security services are pushing for a massive expansion of electronic surveillance in the UK, in the face of opposition from the Treasury and the Cabinet Office, according to the Sunday Times:

The scope of the project - classified top secret - is said by officials to be so vast that it will dwarf the estimated £5 billion ministers have set aside for the identity cards programme. It is intended to fight terrorism and crime. Civil liberties groups, however, say it poses an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary citizens’ lives.

Aimed at placing a “live tap” on every electronic communication in Britain, it will dwarf other “big brother” surveillance projects such as the number plate recognition system and the spread of CCTV.

Pepper and his opposite number at MI6, Sir John Scarlett, are facing opposition from mandarins in the Treasury and Cabinet Office who fear both its cost and ethical implications. 

"Sometimes the best-intentioned plans bring the most insidious threats, where freedoms are not appreciated until it is too late to turn the clock back," Information Commissioner Richard Thomas warned in his annual report released today.

The targeted, and duly authorised, interception of the communications of suspects can be invaluable in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime. But would that provide justification for the scheme which - it has been suggested - is under consideration to create a government-run database to hold details of the telephone and internet communications of the entire population? Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives? Any such scheme would require the fullest public debate to establish whether, whatever the benefits, it amounted to excessive surveillance as a step too far for the British way of life.

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): The cost of Britain's surveillance society has reached £20 billion according to a report by the TaxPayers Alliance released today. The bill includes £19 billion for ID cards, £500 million for CCTV and £300 million for the DNA database.

Henry Porter reports for us from last night's No2ID mayoral hustings.

Henry Porter (London, journalist): Under Ken Livingstone, London has become the most watched city in the free world; but he did not take the opportunity presented by these mayoral hustings to explain why he supports the surveillance by ANPR cameras outside congestion charging hours, the enormous increase in camera systems, or the retention of Oyster card data, which connect personal details with credit cards and travel information. Perhaps this is unsurprising since Livingstone is strongly in favour of ID cards and the National Identity Register, and he is on record as saying he wants thousands more cameras installed in the run up to the London Olympics in 2012.

Douglas MacLeod (Edinburgh, writer): In the six minutes or so it will take you to read this piece an application will have been received to bug the private communications of four of your fellow UK citizens. That's a thousand applications a day, every day, twenty four seven. They are made to the Interception of Communication Commissioner - a title Orwell would have been proud of - from a wide range of bodies: from Government Departments chasing terrorists to local authorities chasing fly tippers. It is time to be afraid, very afraid, and it is time for a public debate on the relationship between the Security Services, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive. The tip of the surveillance iceberg emerged over the case of the Labour MP Sadiq Khan, where the so called ‘Wilson Doctrine' was breached by a junior police officer and the MP's conversation with a constituent was bugged. Now to be scrupulously fair the constituent was a terrorist suspect and it was he, not the MP who was under surveillance. Nevertheless it raises important issues.

Stuart Weir & Andrew Blick (Cambridge & London, Democratic Audit): Last week we noted that easing the ban on the use of domestic intercepted communications as evidence in open court could provide a means of prosecuting some organised criminals and terrorists who might otherwise escape conviction, and make demands for longer term detention without charge even less justifiable.

Jon Bright (London, OK): I am slowly beginning to believe that every single news story now has a sub plot which now takes into account its uneven impact across the devolved administrations of the UK. Or perhaps this has been going on quietly since 1997? More proof comes from the Herald today, which reports that SNP MSP Christine Grahame is calling for the protection of MPs from being bugged - affectionately known as the Wilson doctrine - to be extended to MSPs in Holyrood as well, which the security services currently have even more of a free hand to listen to. I've already speculated that Salmond could make "no ID cards" part of his independent Scotland pitch - could privacy for MSPs form another plank? With an opposition to nuclear weapons, free university education, a Europhile stance and a principled stand against wars of aggression, I must admit I'm thinking about checking for any Scottish ancestry I might have...

Jon Bright (London, OK): Simon Davies of Privacy International has a good article on the Sadiq Khan bugging affair in yesterday's Telegraph. In it he points out that the catch all defence of the "public interest" is always going to override any weak mechanism for checking surveillance in the current frenzied atmosphere of the war on terror. Privacy International provide an interesting comparative take on the state of surveillance societies worldwide, summed up in this eye-watering map:

Bill Thompson (Cambridge, BBC freelance): There has been a lot of fuss in the British press following revelations that conversations between MP and human rights lawyer Sadiq Khan and his constituent and childhood friend Babar Ahmad (who OurKingdom has written about in the past) were recorded in the prison where Mr Ahmad is being held while awating deportation to the USA.

Stuart Weir & Andrew Blick (Cambridge & London, Democratic Audit): Jon Bright picks out below the sheer volume of surveillance in the UK from the report of the new Interception of Communications Commissioner, Paul Kennedy, who seems to have gone native remarkably fast. Intrusion of privacy on this scale is claimed to be justified on the grounds that it protects us all from terrorism and other serious crime. But none of the information obtained in this way can be used as evidence in a court of law.

Jon Bright (London, OK): You may remember towards the end of September last year we reported briefly that Jacqui Smith had, by more or less "personal decree", given power to look at your phone records to almost 800 councils, quangos and other types of public body. These phone records will be stored for up to five years, and will include positional data for mobile phone calls.