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Comment by aqme28 | Hacker News Reader

Yes.

From the comments (credit to http://www.ktetch.co.uk/p/about-me.html):

"Funny thing about the RIPA act was that in 1999, when the act was first discussed, civil Liberties group Stand decided to show the problem.

They sent an email to the Home Secretary (the minister for law and justice) containing a confession (source http://www.zdnet.com/surveillance-straw-petitioned-on-commer... ). That confession was encrypted. Mr Straw had details to a crime in his posession, in an encypted file, and no way to decrypt it. He was, under the letter of the law, refusing to decrypt information relevent to a crime, and should therefore be charged under RIPA.

Guess who wasn’t charged? Yes, the law doesn’t actually apply to you is you’re the Home Secretary. Who knew that those in government consider themselves above the laws they inflict on others."

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> Yes, the law doesn’t actually apply to you is you’re the Home Secretary.

Well, no. The law doesn't say 'if you have encrypted information you have to decrypt it'. It says 'if you have encrypted information you have to decrypt it if the police (or someone else with statutory powers to detain your property) require you to'. The HS wasn't required to.

You can't just email someone an encrypted file and key, snap your fingers, and have them be breaking the law. They have to actually refuse to comply with a notice.

Yes, it's a stupid law, but this stunt doesn't actually show anything.

But the email that was sent was a confession, so it was related to the open case and needed to be decrypted.

The law doesn't work like that. It doesn't matter how important it is - if the police haven't given you a notice to decrypt it, the statute isn't engaged.

So they are infringing on personal privacy, and practicing selective enforcement? If this came to America everyone would be brown from the big shit storm.

Patriot Act

> and practicing selective enforcement?

This is really a terrible analogy for reasons laid out up above. The law says you must do X when asked. You have not been asked to do X, therefore you don't have to do X.

Search for outrage elsewhere.

Technically, no. "Selective enforcement" is when the authorities selectively choose whether to arrest and prosecute someone for breaking a law. That's not quite the case here, as there is no breach of the law unless & until a notice is sent and been refused.

Technically you are right. Essentially the difference is bullshit. They simply don't send a notice to people they want to selectively ignore.

Think of it like a stop-and-search power. It is too wide, but not choosing to stop and search everyone who they have the power to isn't really like selective enforcement - it's just a power they can choose to use if they feel they need to.

In America that is a violation of 4th amendment rights. Now clearly this applies to UK, but we didn't fight the UK in a war for nothing.

I'm not very familiar with US law, but a few moments googling suggests that that's nonsense, and the standard the police must reach to conduct a stop and search in the US, for e.g. weapons ("reasonable suspicion", per Terry v Ohio), is essentially identical to that in the UK ("reasonable grounds for suspecting"). Though the UK statute does cover a slightly wider class of items - e.g. stolen property, rather than just guns as in the US.

(It's true that the reasonable ground requirement was removed for certain areas by the Terrorism Act 2000. That provision was held incompatible with Article 8 of the ECHR (our nearest equivalent of your 4th amendment), and has consequently been repealed).

I'd also raise an eyebrow at your implication that the police are generally less prone to misuse of their powers in the US than the UK. I haven't researched it, but my impression was that in practice it's rather the other way round.

The ultra fragmented nature of the police forces in the states lends its self to this unfortunately.

What the USA needs to do is to move into the 20th century and for each state to have a single police force with uniform standards - this would save a lot of resource wasted by every city/town having its own police force plus state troopers, sheriffs and what have you

That appears to be incorrect. Looking at the actual law, via the link provided on the submitted site (not just the section linked to, but also the surrounding sections), it looks like in the above situation you would be off the hook.

See section 50(3)(b). Also relevant is 53(1) and 53(4).

And the reply to that:

"This argument is ridiculous, since it’s missing the concept of intent. The Home Secretary clearly had no intent. That’s why he/she wasn’t charged."

So a law which you have to prove yourself innocent and can be applied to anyone - but the police get to decide who to apply it to.

nope, can't see any problem with that.

And the reply to that is that there is no criteria requiring intent in this law.

And the reply to that:

The UK law in question does not require intent (mens rea).

It appears that way. Mens rea is a legal concept applied to some of common law (although not always effectively).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea#England

EDIT: British common law divides up laws between those requiring intent and those that don't.

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