For background see:  http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=33860&group=webcast

As mentioned before it's not often that the likes of newsnight, slashdot, radio 4, indymedia and others all report the same story and all say it's a bad thing... but this was one issue that seemed to get everyone moving quickly.

It's a shame though that this didn't happen when the RIP act was being passed in 2000 - although the mobilisation of so many people and the willingness of people to push the opposition now must be down in part to the efforts a pretty small number of people made opposing RIP two years ago - thanks to ALL of you.

As the folks from Stand say, there's plenty more issues to mobilise around...

--------------------------

From http:www.stand.org.uk

RIP Order: Sometimes, you win.

As most of you will already have heard, the government has backed down from the RIP s22 Order that would have given access to traffic data to dozens of government departments (see:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_2051000/2051117.stm)

We thought you'd like to know that this U-turn was largely down to you.

The FaxYourMP folk ( http://www.faxyourmp.com) say that they relayed 1789 faxes from last monday, and estimate that around 1600 of those were related to the s22 RIP Order. That means that, on average, every MP received at least two messages expressing concern over the measure.

We've received mail from constituents saying that their Member of Parliament called them directly to discuss the issue. We've had MPs mail us with advice. We've had TV companies and newspapers contact us after they'd been hassled by their readers and viewers. We've even had MPs writing letters to constituents explaining, mournfully, that there was nothing they could do - and then had their own voters explain to them how to attend Standing Committee debates, and who to get in contact with others to help fight this order. Ah, those apathetic votees.

Also, we had Hugh.

One of the stories we've repeatedly heard is that the Home Secretary's change of heart came from a briefing by his 21-year old son, Hugh Blunkett.

Hugh, like the rest of us, uses the Internet. He knows enough to see how dangerous this proposition was. At some point - whether it was a forwarded messaage, or an announcement posted on  http://slashdot.org/, or a link on your Website - Hugh found out about this order. He read the comments, and the objections posted by thousands of people online, and did something about it.

Now, of course, it does help if your dad is the Home Secretary. But if there's one thing we've learnt from STAND, it's that people have greater access to the levers of government than they think. From you to the Home Secretary is a very short chain, and for practical purposes, we don't care whether it was via Hugh or David's old classmate at Huddersfield College. Someone explained to him how the rest of us feel.

Making contact is important. The volunteers at STAND and FaxYourMP are almost pathologically cynical, but we're regularly taken aback by how positively MPs, editors, civil servants and peers of the realm respond to a personal contact by intelligent and reasonable citizens. It's almost as if they're flattered by the attention. It's almost as if they're touched anyone even cares about what they do.

At the beginning of this campaign - oh, almost a week ago now - many people (from professional lobbyists to anonymous Web forum posters) told us that it was futile to encourage others to make a fuss. It was too late; that delegated legislation would be railroaded through; that no-one cared about privacy issues; that U-turns never happen.

And perhaps we shouldn't get too cocky. Even this proposal has only been "postponed indefinitely", possibly only until the next Parliament after the Summer break. And there are dozens of other bits of legislation hanging about with vast technological idiocies contained within - the RIP Act draft Code of Practices; the EU's Copyright Directive and Data Retention orders; laws against reverse-engineering; software patents and who knows what else.

But we thought it was worth saying that you won. And the next time you're talking to someone about these issues, and someone says "what's the point?" - well, you now may now point at yourself, and mention how you got the government to blink.

======================

FIPR J18 PRESS RELEASE
 http://www.fipr.org

FIPR welcomes Government rethink on snooping powers

FOR IMMEDIATE USE : 18 June 2002

The Home Office is reported to have postponed its proposals to amend the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act to allow a huge increase in the official that can access personal details of phone calls and emails.

Attention was first drawn to the highly technical Regulations encapsulating this change by an FIPR Press Release on 10th June. The story has since become headline news and the Government has now decided not to proceed with these changes.

Ian Brown, Director of FIPR welcomed this news, "these proposals were poorly considered, poorly justified and over the past week have been condemned by almost everyone outside of Whitehall. The Home Office must now tear them up and start again from first principles."

He continued, "we are as keen as anyone else in seeing wrongdoing investigated, but we don't think that handing out such wide-reaching powers to every bureaucrat in the land is compatible with living in a free society. The Government needs to carefully consider whether self-authorisation can ever be appropriate for this type of invasion of privacy and they need to pay a lot more attention to the oversight regime. An Interception Commissioner who doesn't have the resources to open all his mail is no credible way to ensure that abuse is detected."

Contacts for enquiries:

Ian Brown Director Foundation for Information Policy Research  ian@fipr.org Richard Clayton  treasurer@fipr.org 07887 794 090

Notes for editors

The Foundation for Information Policy Research (www.fipr.org), is a non-profit think- tank for Internet and Information Technology policy, governed by an independent Board of Trustees with an Advisory Council of experts.
The only independent oversight of this part of the RIP Act is provided by the Interception Commissioner, but as no central records are kept of accesses, he must travel around every police force and agency inspecting a random sample of their records.
Alan Beith MP of the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee told Parliament in 2001 that the commissioner was "dependent on a tiny support structure which is quite incapable of carrying out the job... there was not even anybody to open the mail, let alone process it, for many months."
see Hansard, 29 Mar 2001, Col 1150
The order, now abandoned, is at:
 http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2002/draft/20022322.htm
A RIP s22 notice will reveal details held by a communications service provider such as...

name and address
service usage details
details of who you have been calling
details of who has called you
mobile phone location info
source and destination of email
usage of web sites (but not pages within such sites)

The current list of bodies allowed to serve RIP s22 notices is:

Police (all the forces, MOD police, NCS, NCIS)
Secret Intelligence Agencies (MI5, MI6, GCHQ)
Customs and Excise
Inland Revenue

The order was to extend the list of public authorities that can issue RIP s22 notices (ie to access traffic data from telcos and ISPs)... ...to add the following central Government departments:

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The Department of Health.
The Home Office.
The Department of Trade and Industry.
The Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions.
The Department for Work and Pensions.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment for Northern Ireland.

AND pretty much any local authority:

Any local authority within the meaning of section 1 of the Local Government Act 1999.
Any fire authority as defined in the Local Government (Best Value) Performance Indicators Order 2000
A council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994.
A district council within the meaning of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972.

AND NHS bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland:

The Common Services Agency of the Scottish Health Service.
The Northern Ireland Central Services Agency for the Health and Social Services.

AND some other bodies:

The Environment Agency.
The Financial Services Authority.
The Food Standards Agency.
The Health and Safety Executive.
The Information Commissioner.
The Office of Fair Trading.
The Postal Services Commission.
The Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary.
A Universal Service Provider within the meaning of the Postal Services Act 2000