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There are some details of the legislation in question here[1]. It allows the UK to monitor "in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom" which seems a little broad!

It would be interesting to know if this warrant targeted all users or a specific subset?

I wonder how they decide whether to issue a warrant or just break into the site in question. A warrant could imply that they are unable to attack the provider, or that they want to have a chilling effect.

[1]http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investiga...

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RIPA was strongly opposed by the IT and communications community during its 'consultation' period, but was passed largely intact. It was so intrusive a proposal that even people like me who often say 'I'll write and complain' actually did write a letter.

Predictions of its misuse have been borne out, particularly as the authorized users of communication data were never enumerated or restricted. So we have the situation today where local Councils use RIPA to obtain communication data regarding individual citizens' activities.

> ..local Councils use RIPA to obtain communication data...

It's worth noting that legislation introduced during 2012 limited the circumstances under which councils could use RIPA powers [1] and required judicial approval for the exercise of those powers [2].

[1]: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1500/article/2/made

[2]: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/part/2/chapter/2/...

This only happened after various scandals about privacy invasion by councils.

And after a Tory-led government came to power...

What's that got to do with it? (genuinely interested).

I think it's ironic that those who are in favour of personal liberties are often on the left of the political spectrum whereas, in this instance, it was the Tories who rolled back aspects of surveillance legislation that was introduced by Labour.

I think that the left/right distinction is silly myself. A typical red vs blue flag waving exercise rather than solving anything.

Both labour and conservatives seem to mix the tenets of the two freely based on whim rather than manifesto.

On one hand we have Big Society and smash socialism.

On the other hand we have Big Society and smash socialism.

Same turds, different coloured glitter.

All parties have sold out to their corporate sponsors and are as bent as anything.

Whilst I don't agree 100%, I don't disagree strongly enough to make an argument of it. :-)

I think that the left/right distinction is silly myself.

You're right, it's totally ridiculous. The whole thing is rooted in shit that dates back to before the French Revolution[1], and there's no real connection whatsoever between the "left" and "right" of the French Assembly and modern political views.

How absurd is it? Just read this:

There is general consensus that the Left includes progressives, communists, social-liberals, greens, social-democrats, socialists, democratic-socialists, civil-libertarians (as in "social-libertarians"; not to be confused with the right's "economic-libertarians"), secularists, and anarchists, and that the Right includes conservatives, reactionaries, neoconservatives, capitalists, neoliberals, economic-libertarians (not to be confused with the left's "civil-libertarians"), social-authoritarians, monarchists, theocrats, nationalists, Nazis (including neo-Nazis) and fascists.

It takes anybody with even half a brain about .0002 seconds to realize that any sort of ontology that lumps "neoconservatives" and "economic libertarians" (which basically corresponds with "US style libertarianism") in the same bin, or that lumps "anarchists" with "democratic socialists", or that lumps pretty much any kind of "libertarian" along with "monarchists" and "theocrats", is totally useless.

In modern terms, there is no "right" and there is no "left". There are just people haphazardly throwing around archaic labels because they either A. have a vague notion that the label confers some sort of appealing "vibe" and want to leverage it to advance their cause, or B. have a vague notion that the label will be seen as a pejorative and want to use it to put their opposition in a bad light.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics

Mean while, they Tories have rolled back legal aid, which means the poor cant get decent lawyers any more.

Non Brits might be amused to know that this Tory government wanted to out source poor people's legal representation to a haulage company. Yeah, you read that right.

>> I think it's ironic that those who are in favour of personal liberties are often on the left of the political spectrum whereas, in this instance, it was the Tories who rolled back aspects of surveillance legislation that was introduced by Labour.

Those on what passes for the 'left' of UK politics spent over a decade stripping rights and liberties away just as far as they can in the name of protecting people.

I don't personally think it's much of a left-right issue. It's another axis.

I'm not the GP poster, but I'd suggest that one of the few policy areas the Tories and Lib Dems found that they could readily agree on was civil liberties.

One of the first things the new government did was start the wheels turning on what became the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Whether you think that law went far enough or not, I suspect most here would say it took steps in the right direction on numerous issues where the previous New Labour administration had eroded rights and liberties. A few of them were big-headline, fundamental issues, but there were quite a few relatively minor concerns addressed as well, such as the excessive use of surveillance by local authorities that we're talking about here.

Given that coalition government is not the norm in the UK, I suspect politically it was more important that this was something the two parties could agree on as an anchor than anything else, though no doubt many of the incoming Lib Dem MPs and at least some of the Tories were no fans of the previous situation anyway.

Protection of Freedom Act doesn't work because it's additive. Repealing other acts would be a better solution.

Many parts of the 2012 act do repeal or limit the effects of earlier legislation.

Spot on. I wrote to my MP about RIPA. Not a sausage back.

A warrant could imply that they are unable to attack the provider

This is the institution which allowed U-boats to sink British ships so not to even hint that the ENIGMA cipher was cracked. I'm sure they're utterly incompetent at keeping secrets, and anyone on the internet can deduce their most critical SIGINT capabilities simply by observing how they deal with civil warrants in minor cases.

Well the Snowden revelations suggest that yes this kind of capability will become public. We exist in a space that is bounded by technological opportunities and limitations which agencies are just as subject to as everyone else.

This is the institution which allowed U-boats to sink British ships so not to even hint that the ENIGMA cipher was cracked. I'm sure they're utterly incompetent at keeping secrets

Easy call to make 70 years after the fact, I guess.

A warrant might just mean that they're asking for the information legally, so that they can use it, rather than relying on their illegally gathered hacked information.

A warrant might mean that they do not ever illegally hack sites, and that they only ever obey the law.

RIPA is problematic law, and it's nice to see discussion of RIPA cases involving GCHQ.

Not avoiding the problems of RIPA and GCHQ (I certainly think it needs better oversight and I'd prefer better law) RIPA has been abused quite a lot by many other organisations for stuff that US readers may find really awful.

Local education authorities spy on parents to ensure they're actually in the catchment area of a school that they want to send children to, for example. Or councils spy on people applying for parking permits to make sure those people live in that area, and aren't just selling the permits on. Having that activity regulated is important, but RIPA is less regulation and more encouragment.

> A warrant might just mean that they're asking for the information legally, so that they can use it, rather than relying on their illegally gathered hacked information.

Note that the "warrant", in this case, required that CertiVox hand over the key(s) to the encrypted data. It's possible that the authorities (not necessarily GCHQ itself, as NTAC provides assistance to other law enforcement and intelligence agencies) had already intercepted or seized the data but were unable to read it because it was encrypted.

From https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/In_the_interests_of_th... -

"The House will notice that the Bill restricts the activities of the SIS and GCHQ for safeguarding the economic well-being of the country to the acts or intentions of persons outside the United Kingdom. The agencies may not and do not get involved in domestic economic, commercial or financial affairs."

So it's not quite as broad reaching as it reads on first glance. It is generally a problem though that laws need to be written so they're broad enough to cover circumstances which might not have been considered at the time of the laws' writing so that new laws don't need to be written all the time yet they can't be so overly broad as to be unworkable - which is why the judiciary has it's role in deciding how to interpret the laws and decide whether or not they ought to apply in a given circumstance.

Also, one can argue that it's a good thing in general that our intelligence and security services' activities are regulated by laws like this (instead of operating in grey areas beyond the law).

And, by the way, activities carried out by the UK's intelligence and security services OUTSIDE the UK are also subject to RIPA.

>> It allows the UK to monitor "in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom" which seems a little broad!

You're right, that is a bit broad. "In the interests of the UK's ruling class" would be more accurate.

"In the name of the People, shut down this facility!"

Well, that sounds familiar. It seems the more governments change over the decades, the more they stay the same.

In a case of "Just because you're paranoid Don't mean they're not after you" Harold Wilson, who was paranoid about lots of things but particularly being bugged by MI5, was in No 10 at a time when there were bugs in cabinet room and PM's study - whether the bugs were actually used or not isn't known:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wilson_conspiracy_theori...

Edit: If anyone is interested in this stuff, I can strongly recommend Dominic Sandbrook's histories of the UK in the 60s and 70s:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dominic-Sandbrook/e/B001HCWSSW/ref=n...

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