Britain's Surveillance Society
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The reason? For almost 100 years now, England has had the most powerful right-to-silence of any country in the world, and dating before that there are hundreds of years of well established common law on the subject.
In England and Wales, you don't have to answer any question to anyone. The one proven exception is under tax investigation, however any evidence of criminal acts disclosed is inadmissible in court.
The 2000 R.I.P. Act supposedly made it illegal to withhold a requested key to protected (encrypted) information. However, to my knowledge this is untested in court. Although AFAIK the law is still too broad to be untestable in court, because under common law you can pick and choose when to talk (unlike Canada where if you talk, you have to talk), so I believe it's still unproven that you have to disclose it if you've never had a dialogue with the police, nor has it been tested against the privileged against self-incrimination. So potentially any evidence gained under this law may be inadmissible in court if it incriminates you.
Your knowledge is out of date -- see:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/14/ripa_encryption_key_... ("animal rights activist hit with RIPA key disclosure order")
http://www.out-law.com/page-9514 ("Court of Appeal orders men to disclose encryption keys")
Also, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994) allows juries to draw adverse conclusions from a defendant's failure to give evidence or answer questions (and a few other similar matters) -- this was brought in during the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence affair.
No, no, no.
The Criminal Justice Act 1994 (fifteen years ago) essentially removed the blanket right to silence in England and Wales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_and...
They even changed the wording of the standard arrest caution. Since 1994 the words "You do not have to say anything" are now followed by a rather ominous "...But..."
To add a data point; we have seen this used several times, always successfully admissible.
Being somewhat on the firing line and seeing the results I find it quite hard to find it a bad law.
I love the UK's inherent right to silence; it's one of the things I still find truly wonderful about my country. But in the case of RIPA my opinion is in reverse :)
Most defense attorneys view the 5th amendment as an armed grenade. By not saying anything it infers guilt. Saying too much can add to the case against you. Used wisely and you can work it in your favor.
All of this is done without the use of passive surveillance. Just good detective work.
If you are guilty, well there we go - if not, then there is a path for review if the powers given to government are abused. And because it's after the fact no investigation gets hurt.
You should be compensated if you're monitored. The argument is that monitoring has a sigificant social benefit. WHen that's actually true, then it's no big deal to compensate you for your loss of privacy. When that's not actually true, then society should pay the cost, not you.