Why Care About Terrorism?

Henry Porter at the Guardian has a thoughtful article on terrorism, arguing that far too much in the way of effort, attention and resources compared to the likely threat to life.

I agree that more attention is paid to terrorism as compared with other issues relative to the actual threat to life, though the really clear examples where this is the case, aren't even the issues he cites like swine flu, but mundane issues like road safety. Presumably politicians could argue that the demand for these policies comes from the general public, and that they are only addressing their concerns. There is still a very interesting question to ask here about why it is that people worry much more about dying in a terrorist outrage than they do about crossing the road on the way to work.

Also really interesting in Porter's piece is his suggestion that downgrading this disproportionate attention would "deprive terrorists of the sense of unearthly self-importance that has done so much to and flatter their cause and encourage recruitment." I'm sure that something like this is true. It brings to mind the constant (and futile) pleas of pressure groups in America that coverage of schoolyard shootings should be as sober as possible.

Facebook: Private?

From Slashdot: Following on from the reports of people possibly having their social networking activities monitored by their work, it seems that at least one company has taken the step of prohibiting using social networking sites as part of the recruitment and hiring process.

Phorm helped Co-author Home Office Paper On Phorm's Legality

From the BBC: it looks like the government has been very cosy with Phorm in drafting its public position:

In January 2008 the Home Office thanks Phorm for comments and changes to its draft paper, which show the company making deletions and changes to the document.
The Home Office official wrote to Phorm: "If we agree this, and this becomes our position do you think your clients and their prospective partners will be comforted."

Am I being terribly unjust in seeing a parallel with the drafting of the so called 'Dodgy Dossier' in the run up to Iraq?

Permanent Record?

The government will request Internet Service Providers and mobile phone companies to hold all communications data - websites visited, emails sent etc. - so that they can be accessed by the security services. There are strikingly similar editorial pieces in the Independent and the Telegraph, and a stronger denunciation from Henry Porter in the Guardian.

I'm curious to know how long companies will be required to hold this data, and also whether there are any specific requirements regarding the the companies' security - part of concern about the creation of a central database holding all this sensitive information (a plan which the government has dropped) is the vulnerability to such a database to unauthorised snoopers hacking their way in.

Recruiting Informants

Another report of uk police pressuring people to become informants. Last week I blogged about the case of Martin Winters, a friend of a suspected Real IRA leader. Despite Winters continued refusals, he claims police harrassed him for years trying to get him to inform. At the weekend the Guardian broke the story of environmentalist protesters from Plane Stupid being pursued as potential informants. The protester secretly taped the conversation (more sousveillance?) and now anyone can have a listen over at the guardian's website.

In both cases there seem to have been a combination of bribes and threats in play. What do you think of this behaviour? Is snitching so objectionable that police should never seek informants? Should they only use the carrot rather than the stick? Does the answer depend on whether you're pursuing terrorists or not? Or is the police's behaviour fine in both these cases?

Facebook: Public Space or Private Space?

A woman has been fired for using facebook while taking the day off work. The intriguing bit is that she claims her employers created a false profile to 'friend' her and spy on her. Whether or not that is actually what happened (the company deny that it is), I wouldn't be surprised if it were common - many employers will just find it irresistable to keep tabs on their employees.

I'm mainly interested in how this compares to real world interactions of a similar kind. If she had taken the day off work and was spotted talking to a friend in a cafe, presumably this would not count as an invasion of privacy, whereas if someone from work had spied on her through her bedroom window this would be completely unacceptable. So where does facebook fit in here? Is facebook interaction public or private?

An End to Frivolous Council Snooping?

Still catching up some of the developments from last week. A while ago I speculated (tongue in cheek of course) that a job on the council might be a great option for anyone seeking revenge. Jaqui Smith now says that council snooping should be restricted and has announced a review of the use of RIPA. However, the government still seem to want to avoid judicial oversight in the system. Oversight could instead be left in the hands of 'elected representatives'. Is that sufficient to avoid misuse? How strong would the incentives of a councillor to thoroughly scrutinise council use of such powers be?

Henry Porter has a characteristically robust post over at the guardian where he describes this as a merely 'tactical withdrawal'.

Mark Thomas's Fingerprints

A funny video over at the Guardian as Mark Thomas talks through his experience having his DNA removed from the National Database in accordance with European rulings.

Can Whistleblowing Survive?

An interesting piece from last weeks Guardian media supplement. New detection technologies will make it increasingly difficult for investigative journalists to make use of whistleblowers without the employers knowing.

Is this just a price which comes with the new technological innovations, or are there any viable solutions, whether legal or technological?

The Company You Keep

An absolutely facinating story from the Sunday Tribune at the weekend. A man by the name of Martin Winters claims to have been continually approached by the British Security Services with offers of 6 figure sums and a home abroad to inform on 'X', a leader of the Real IRA.

The continued approaches already amounted to harrassment before Winters found a bug and GPS tracker under his car bumper last August. Winters admits knowing X, but claims to be completely uninvolved in any Real IRA activities, indeed, completely uninterested in politics in general. He says all he wants now, is for him and his family to be left alone.

Even if this were a completely fictional story the scenario alone raises some interesting questions. At the outset there is the moral dilemma of what one ought to do faced with evidence that one's friend is involved in wrongdoing on a large scale (a main theme of my favourite film). But I think that even if you agree that one does have an obligation to turn a friend in in such circumstances, that this isn't the sort of obligation any one else could demand from you.

Another set of questions this raises relates to Winter's right to privacy here. Many would affirm the right of authorities to place a tracker or bug on X's car, given that there were evidence that he has been involved in wrongdoing. But could you justify such intrusions into the privacy of an innocent man? Should we affirm a principle that association with the wrong crowd in itself, regardless of intention, forfeits one's right to privacy?

The Responsibility to Provide?

The Guardian reports that secret police intelligence on the movements and meetings of climate change protesters was passed on to energy firm E.ON, presumably gathered by surveillance which E.ON would not have been permitted to carry out itself.

I blogged previously about Omand's IPPR paper on the future of intelligence gathering. The phrase that jumped out at me in that paper was 'The Responsibility to Provide'. As I understood it, Omand's recommendation was that, rather than access to intelligence being restricted on a 'need to know' basis, instead intelligence ought to be readily provided to the various different levels of the policing and security services to which such intelligence might be pertinent - letting the local police know, for example, that they should keep an eye on a particular suspect. These reports seem to imply that this 'responsibility to provide' extends not only to the police but also private companies. I want to know who else is entitled to this sort of access to intelligence? What is the criteria? And also, as I said in my post on the Omand paper, can this access be reconciled with Omand's 6 conditions for oversight?

More on Watching the Watchmen...

A number of people have made the same point in relation to the sad case of Ian Tomlinson, namely, that the case shows that people's mastery of technology makes it more difficult for authorities to misuse their power. For example Robert Reiner in the Guardian today has invoked Thomas Mathiesen notion of a 'synopticon'. Similarly I have heard others invoking the notion of 'sousveillance'.

Even if this really can function as any kind of a check on misuse of power, I think there are questions to be asked as to whether this is a very appealing vision. Do we really want the basis of justice to be everyone's visibility to everyone else? Cases I've heard of 'internet vigilantism' often make me shudder, even when I think the victim of it was thoroughly in the wrong. The problem with vigilantism is that it is so uncontrolled - people get swept up in the righteous lust for justice so much that they can lose a sense of proportion.

None of this denies the possible importance of people having taken those videos on the day in question. But overall my feeling on the idea hasn't changed much from yesterday's post. I think the key question in the death of Ian Tomlinson will again be one of law - whether the policeman in question will be subject to appropriate just process. It doesn't matter if everyone knows that a particular wrong has been committed, if the wrongdoers are institutionally shielded from any kind of consequences for them. The test will come in what now happens to those involved.

Who Watches The Watchmen - We Do! (well...in Sweden anyway)

A very interesting post on Slashdot today. When I reported the news of the massive spying network found in China someone commented that it was detection technology that enables it to be uncovered. In Sweden apparently a website has been launched which enables the user to know if their IP address is under investigation for violation of intellectual property rights.

It's a cliche at the moment that parents will never be able to control their children's internet activity because each generation will have a better grasp of the technology than the previous one. The thought occurred to me that the same thing might occur at a macro level - that the excesses of government surveillance will always be kept in check by a citizenry that can draw on the skills of its most advanced users. This vision would surely appeal to libertarians (and beyond) all over the world.

However the thought is ultimately Utopian - the crucial difference is one of law. In Sweden, it seems, requests to view sensitive viewing information held by ISPs must go through the public court system. I don't actually know how far the limitations on covert surveillance actually go in Sweden - presumably if you're a spook chasing a suspected terrorist you don't have to do so publicly?

Any thoughts?

Controvertial Supreme Court Ruling...

Courtesy of The Onion. A report to brighten the day.

Seeking Vengence? - Work for your Local Council!

So from today all our web activity is (officially) to be recorded for at least a year and accessible to "hundreds of public authorities, quangos [and] local authorities". Critics of these powers often invoke notions like 'the police state' in making the case against them. But I've a much more mundane concern playing on my mind. Suppose I live next to someone who works for the Council and I've annoyed them in some petty way (maybe I didn't invite her to my house party). If she has decided that she wants to get even with me, what stops her from finding out what websites I visit? You could cause absolute havoc armed with that sort of information!

MI5 to Outsource Surveillance to Google.

I know I'm two days late. But this put a smile on my face.

Angry Villagers

Some people in Broughton in Buckinghamshire, incensed at Google Street View's invasions of privacy, blocked a photographer's car when he was driving around the village taking pictures. Presumably they are not satisfied by Google's offer to take down photographs on request.

And surely there is something a little back to front about this attitude to privacy. At the end of the day my privacy is just as violated by an offending picture if I'm unaware of it - Google's policy seems to imply that 'privacy' is a subjective matter, which does no harm as long as the person in question knows nothing about it.

MEP's Recommendations

Mathias Vermeulen, also working on the Detecter project, has interesting news over at his blog the Lift. The Members of the European Parliament have made a series of recommendations for protecting privacy, security and freedom from censorship on the internet.

More Corporate Spying

Another company has been caught spying on its employees. This time its airbus, who were monitoring staff bank accounts.

Just how common is this behaviour? Can we rely on our media to inform us? In this case the revelations emerged as a result of new management coming in and auditing the company. The former journalist David Simon who had such success writing about corruption in the modern American city in The Wire has warned that the slow death of newspapers spells great opportunities for corrupt public officials in the next 10-15 years. Could it also be a golden era for corporate spying?

How Would Sir Care to be Invaded?

An old story today but I'm interested to get people's reactions. There was a lot of outcry over the proposal to use new millimetre wave technology body scanners at airports recently. The scanners produce a very clear image of the subject's (naked) body, revealing any concealed items, such as knives or guns. Understandably, many find the idea of being subject to such a search unacceptably invasive, no matter how quick and convenient.

But what do you think of this product? This was proposed for use in prisons. It's seat that will scan the subject's 'bodily cavities' while they are still fully clothed. They call it 'Boss' - Body Orifice Security Scanner'. While I'm certainly not immune to a sense that between its name, function and resemblance to an electric chair it all seems a little bit like something out of a dystopian movie, I want to try and put aside the 'yuck factor' in figuring out what I think about this. In assessing the rights and wrongs of using this product, surely the question of what it is replacing has to be significant. If a prisoner was suspected of smuggling a mobile phone (the main problem targeted) the alternative would presumably be an even more unpleasant physical cavity search. I can't imagine anyone preferring that to sitting down in Boss.

However, I think this very 'convenience' opens the door to a further potential danger. If these are installed in prisons I would imagine that these searches will become more widespread. And while I think it's less invasive than the alternative, it's hardly neutral. Comments?

Fisk on Galloway

Robert Fisk has a piece in the Independent today on the Canadian government's odd refusal to admit George Galloway into the country on the grounds that he's 'a security threat'. These claims have grown increasingly farcical with the immigration minister's spokesman calling Galloway 'an infandous street corner Cromwell'. Now you can think what you like about George Galloway (personally I think Fisk gets it about right when he calls him a "self-publicist, friend of dictators, reality TV show performer and general silly ass"), but surely nobody actually thinks Galloway making his speeches in Canada puts anyone directly at risk? And if that's the case then the only motivation for denial of entry can have been to make a political point. Sounds to me like a poor precedent to set. Any thoughts?