terrorism bill

[michaelab]

Anyway, the head of the met is the last person I would be listening to for advice. I read recently that he would like to extend the police powers of shoot to kill to stalker and hostage situations !! Those are not the thoughts of a rational man IMO. The man is quite clearly an authoritarian despot.

Quite. This account in the Guardian of someone wrongly arrested makes chilling reading. He was lucky he didn't have the chance to board a train as he might well have ended up pumped full of lead just like Mr Menezes for the same "err...he looks guilty, lets kill him" reasons

Michael.

 

[auric]

See this comment on the RIP 2000 ACT about witholding encryption keys.

he second key controversy is the legislation's reverse burden of proof. If intercepted communications are encrypted (encoded and made secret), the act will force the individual to surrender the keys (pin numbers which allow users to decipher encoded data), on pain of jail sentences of up to two years. The government says keys will only be required in special circumstances and promises that the security services will destroy the keys as soon as they are finished with.

 

[leonard smalls]

The answer is very simple. Make it an offence not to give up the cyphers to any encrypted files on computers owned by you.
GTM

I heard on the radio that it already is..
It's funny that it's Labour who are pushing through this "if you're not with us you're against us" legislation.
I remember the furore years ago when the Tory government increased the number of days a suspect could be held without charge to 3 days!
All of a sudden 90 days is necessary, even though the MPs Select Committee didn't think it needed to be any more than 28 days (and they'd heard all the police evidence too).
Reactionary nonsense, imo..