PGP and The Home Office:
David Knopfler
"The computer illiterate Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has made several chirpy sound bytes about making Britain the most e-friendly country in the world. With the introduction of the RIP Bill, the Home Office... has successfully made him look like a fool and a rank liar"
It is not for nothing that a recent Sunday Times headline described New Labour's
Home Secretary as 
"further to the right than the Tories." In the immortal
words of a popular tune ... "You aint seen nothin' yet." The British Government,
not content with CCHQ, Echelon and other, tax pounds paid-for, unaccountable, snooping
devices, is introducing a heavy handed, ill conceived, bill to legally snoop on your
email, even if you use encryption. The RIP (Regulation of Investigatory Powers) Bill
is aptly named since frankly it aught to be dead on delivery and allowed to rest
in peace if the increasing battle fatigue and lethargy of the British public on civil
liberties issues and democrat rights, can be overcome, to say nothing of the damage
to British business interests vis a vis e-commerce.
PGP is now incredibly easy to download and install. Five minutes max' and it operates
straight out of your main menu bar. A single click to encrypt and the same to decrypt.
However if you think downloading PGP will guarantee you privacy in Britain - think
again. Jack Straw has other ideas.
Tony Blair's loyal supporter, billionaire Rupert Murdoch, interestingly described
by Observer journalist Nick Cohen as "an elephantine swindler," may indeed
pay no taxes but he does own Sky News. This TV channel has unfortunately not seen
fit to cover the progress or otherwise of this controversial RIP bill. Called a
Spooks Charter by most aware journalists prepared to write about it, the RIP
Bill not content with throwing civil rights into the dark ages, is also likely to
be extremely damaging to the UK's e-commerce business community. It is instructive
that in Ireland, the most literate country in Europe, they have just passed legislation
making it explicitly clear that the State wants nothing to do with breaching privacy.
Worryingly it's not only Sky who've been tardy. Other's seem to be suffering a similar
amnesia. When Jack Straw, arguably the most right wing politician in authority, this
country has witnessed since Cromwell, does a major interview and the journalist (hardly
the correct description for Sir David Frost these days I'll grant you) fails to ask
him what on earth he thinks he's doing introducing legislation which will criminalise
those who insist on their rights to privacy? you begin to wonder what gives? The
"big idea" is essentially this: Two years in jail if you tell the state
to take a hike, should they wish to read your private online correspondence. This
is because they want to criminalise you for refusing to give them your private key
to your email. I wouldn't choose to give Jack Straw a key to my house or my filing
cabinet, indeed I probably wouldn't choose to cross the proverbial road to assist
him in an unmentionable way, were he on fire either, so why should I be any more
obliging with my private online correspondence?
Our present Home Secretary is no stranger to repressive legislation however. When
Lou Reed in New York wrote "Bring me your poor - your huddled masses ... let's
just club 'em to death and get it over with" he knew what he was talking about.
That it's now a criminal offence in Britain, the supposed cradle of democracy, punishable
with a £2,000 fine per head, to assist someone fleeing for their life, to arrive
here in the UK, is equally arresting in it's lack of moral propriety. Nick Hardwick,
Chief Executive for The Refugee Council said recently "it is virtually impossible
for people fleeing persecution to enter Britain legally. They are therefore forced
to search for such desperate measures in their search for sanctuary." Our Jack
however made it an offence for Asylum Seekers to enter Britain or to aid an asylum
seeker to do the same. Under the new legislation, Chinese refugees, lets just say,
for the sake of argument, 56 of them, banged up in a parked lorry in a British port,
would cost the driver £112,000 pounds should he elect to open his back doors
on an inordinately hot day. Well thought through Jack.
Journalist Jasper Gerard was summarily evicted by the chief minister of the interior
from his home for having the temerity of asking him about his dope dealing son in
the comparative context of Blair's paralytic one. I wonder how Straw would have reacted
if he'd asked him about this repressive unenforceable and lunatic piece of legislation? Unfortunately it
seems we'll never know.
Our Head of internal intelligence, police and prisons, having single-handedly redefined
the vocabulary of race, now plans to do the same for Civil Liberties: Refugees or
asylum seekers are no longer called refugees - they are called "illegals"
from plodder Jack's conscienceless mouth as he presides over rising crime statistics
and is looking for someone to blame for this lamatable failure of policy. If those
fleeing to safety are unlucky enough to have come from Kosovo (you'll recall that
was the place the UK and USA bombed into the middle ages recently) they would have
been no doubt further dismayed (not to say shocked) to hear him pronounce that they
have all "overstayed their welcome." Kind of like announcing that the grouse
shooting season begins with Kosovans as the grouse wouldn't you think? Skinheads
now have a new chant when intimidating Kosovans - Straw 58 - Asylum Seekers Nil.
And what about this new legislation? Here's the unspoken spin... Be careful what
you say about it. From what noises the establishment have made to justify this ill
considered Bill, we are supposed to deduce that those who express a problem having
their privacy encroached upon, will, in a McCarthiesque twist, find themselves treated
by the State worse than they treat even an asylum seeker. Shouild you not wish to
share your thoughts with the state, expect to be assessed as a probable pedophiles
or drug smuggler, rather than eco-activists, concerned journalists or union activists
and liable to a two year prison stretch for insisting their private thoughts, sent
by encrypted email to others, remain private.
And that doesn't even scratch the surface of the panic, inventors and other successful
and dynamic entrepreneurials are going through, wondering how on earth to keep leaky
and corrupt government out of their private files should this ill considered legislation
somehow blunder it's way onto the statute books. "Isn't Blair called to account
for Jack Straw?" asked a conservative friend of mine from the US recently with
some surprise at the reports he'd been reading in the Washington Post.
It's a fair question. It seems however PM Tony Blair knows how to spin a story. Instead
of offering condolences to the bereaved, in the case of the 56 victims at Dover,
he says this just shows how much harder we must "crack down" and "weed
out" these desperate, disadvantaged, poverty stricken people. Let's hope some
future day neither he nor Mr Straw are ever looking for asylum, hiding in the back
of a truck, trying to save their kids, or trying to cross a border to safety, a border
that anyway would have come down when Britain joined the EU but for England's unfortunate,
and frankly notorious reputation internationally, for xenophobia.
The RIP bill is only one of many own goals Straw has scored for democracy in this
parliament. Britain currently stands alone in the Western World in having a party,
nominally of the centre left, comprehensively trash constitutional liberties taken
for granted here for several centuries:
Right to silence? Gone
Presumption of innocence unless proven guilty? Gone
Rights to asylum? Gone.
John Noughton, Highly respected Internet authority and journalist in the Observer
Business section described the RIP bill as "a catastrophe" not only for
civil liberties but also for British E-commerce becasue of the costly burdons,unique
to the UK, it will place on dot.com companies. Regretfully the House of Lords appears
to have been deaf to both arguments.
In a gesture of abject tokenism the Government have announced that they will ban
fox hunting with dogs - which is great news for foxes - most of whom these days live
safely in back gardens in urban cities because their rural environment has been so
comprehensively degraded. However Jack Straw, presumably a great animal lover, like
Hitler, plans to increase hunting down illegal asylum seekers instead - with several
new crack squads. I wonder if they'll equip them with sexy black uniforms and big
red black and white arm bands to mark them out for the under class to admire? Perhaps
they can use all those unemployed beagles to assist?
Straw, the self professed admirer of Benito Mussolini, it seems, in psycho-analytic
terms, will deal with his shadow, by creating militaristic "crack squads"
to keep "the foreign" from contaminating him. That is scary enough and
certainly more shocking than anything Enoch Powell ever said or did but when free
loading, tax avoiding broadcasters, who should know better, start using language
like this: "The aim is to weed out illegal immigrants" it makes you wonder
if this garden isn't in need of gentler ministrations.
Even Austrian hard right politico Jorg Heider would hesitate to talk about the world's
most disadvantaged and desperate in such damaged and damning terms as our political
leaders. Benito out righting the widdicombe spider who in turn out rights her "something
of the night" predecessor, the profoundly unlikable Michael Howard. However
in a repressive, social climate, for which Straw can currently take most of the credit
for having created, to talk about "weeding out bogus asylum seekers" as
if the garden requires Aryan purity, with a bag count of 56 corpses that accompanies
these efforts at totalitarian tinkering, this great admirer of Mussolini's efficiency,
need have, it seems, no such considerations for propriety.
Asylum Seekers (the new buzz word for "immigrants" before they become "illegals")
are now required to live on food vouchers encashable only at certain stores - movement
is circumscribed - they must live where they are sent - degrading stuff. "Madam
what do you take us for, Barbarians?" reproved a German official when a Jewish
mother on boarding the "special treatment" train asked if she would be
separated from her son on arrival at the camp? I expect British Officials who bang
up an asylum seeker in London for having the audacity to criminally take a non-direct
flight to the UK and who packed off his family two hundred miles North in special
buses to live on £30 a week's worth of food vouchers, offer similar consolation.
So, should you want to say extremely critical things about our Home Secretary's policies
without fear of his intelligence squads reading it and knee jerking, by all means
use PGP but be aware, a potential two year prison sentence hangs like the proverbial
damoclesian sword, should you elect not to hand over your private keys if asked.
For the record, I, and many other law abiding citizens like me, shall not be handing
ours over, regardless of RIP. Anyone who cares even a little about the most basic
of democratic rights should respond in kind. The exercise is of course somewhat symbolic
since I'd be confident that PGP wouldn't keep your average spook unaware of content
for long. If British Intelligence could crack Enigma, I'm sure they could soon find
ways to neutralise Phil
Zimmermann's excellent PGP, without pissing away millions
of taxpayers money on black boxes for ISPs, crooks simply will not use. The speed
with which technology moves, means these boxes will be obsolete almost before they
are installed - so expect constant expensive updates at tax payers expense. With
software like MacTella and Gnutella coming to the fore, the very notion of all information
flowing between ISPs is already as outdated as the notion that only a billion dollar
corporation can release books or records. For better or worse people on the Internet
can say pretty much anything they like anywhere they like and it appears to me that
Jack Straw is going to be about as successful as King Canute controlling the waves
if he thinks he can lower his rising crime statistics this way. What he can do however
is add another pointless layer of unwelcome bureaucratic totalitarianism around our
institutions, and bash another nail into a battered British coffin called "quality
of life" while helping to further damage what little is left of the labour party's
tattered reputation for social justice.
Another frisson of excitement can be expected, when the judiciary start dolling out
five year prison sentences... that's the maximum term you can get, if after being
served with an order to hand over your encryption keys to the powers that be, you
have the temerity to tell someone else, like a friend or a spouse about it. Are you
dreaming? Am I kidding? No, I'm afraid not. Start complaining now - the Lords have
already cleared it for a crash landing in October. Expect to see an exodus of e-commerce
banks from Britain, as they lodge their encryption keys and sterling in Swiss and
other bank vaults. Expect also to see a number of ISPs set up offshore arrangements
to counter this goofy lunacy. The computer illiterate Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
has made several chirpy sound bytes about making Britain the most e-friendly country
in the world. With the introduction of the RIP Bill, the Home Office (which to all
intents and purposes appears to be run by the spooks, rather than than the elected
officials who are supposed to control their excesses) has successfully made him look
like a fool and a rank liar. Another notch in Straw's bedpost for screwing his friend?
To put it in the more temperate language of The New Times " Not only Jack Straw
but Prime Minister Blair seems to have no concern for civil liberties. What matters,
evidently, is pleasing the voters by being tough on law and order." Guardian
columnist Hugo Young described Mr. Blair showing "indifference to, almost his
contempt for, civil liberties." Quite a thing when a newspaper Labour can usually
most count on for support, is so stung to criticise.
There was, I understand, a 13th Century leader called Jack Straw, who was decapitated
by the State for inciting uprisings... However as none of Jack's most ardent fans
read history books, nor indeed books, I doubt history in this instance will repeat.
Further commentary on that comment can be sent via PGP. My public key follows. My
private key however will remain precisely that... private.
David Knopfler
©David Knopfler July 2000
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More details about RIP and related matters can be found here