It's a little unclear from Statewatch's website what the status of this bill is, but I gather it's been introduced in Parliament as recently as this week. You can find the text here: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2001/nov/08terrorbill.htm Here's the section on data retention: >The Secretary of State shall issue, and may from time to time revise, a >code of practice relating to the retention by communications providers of >communications data obtained by or held by them... It shall be the duty of >a communications provider to comply with any direction... the Secretary of >State may give such directions as he considers appropriate about the >retention of communications data (a) to communications providers >generally; (b) to communications providers of a description specified in >the direction; or (c) to any particular communications providers or provider. If I may, permit me to pose a question to the U.K. lawyers on this list: Does this give the Secretary of State the power to ban anonymous remailers operating inside the U.K.? (Or, more precisely, limit their utility by requiring record-keeping, identity escrow.) I'm not saying, of course, that the secretary would choose to exercise that authority -- at least not right away. The question is whether that authority would exist. Seems to me that "communications providers" may be defined broadly enough for that to be the case. See also: "Europe set to nix Bush request, not require ISP data retention" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02789.html -Declan --- From: John Armitage <john.armitageat_private> To: "'declanat_private'" <declanat_private> Subject: UK anti-terrorism proposals & other news from Statewatch Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 16:13:59 -0000 [Declan, no military tribunals in the UK -- yet. But, we are getting there... John] =================================================== Statewatch News Online, 14 November 2001 See: <http://www.statewatch.org/news> UK ANTI-TERRORISM BILL PUBLISHED The UK government has published its "Anti-terrorism, crime and security Bill". For research and information purposes Statewatch has broken the Bill down below into Sections (with smaller "pdf" sizes): 1. Immigration and asylum and race and religion (Part 4, Sections 21-42) 2. Police powers, Northern Ireland, MOD and transport police (Part 10, Sections 88-100) 3. Retention of telecommunications data (Part 11, Sections 101- 105) 4. EU Third pillar, Terrorism Act 2000 (Part 13, Sections 109-119) 5. Schedules: these contain additional changes which may be relevant to above Analysis of this lengthy Bill will follow. DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS MUST NOT BECOME THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM A group of lawyers have drawn up an "Appeal" to the European Parliament to reject the proposal by the European Commission which seeks to introduce a binding Framework Decision introducing a definition of "terrorism" which would seriously threaten democratic rights and the "freedom of association, the right to strike and freedom of expression". The "appeal" has already been signed by 82 lawyers from six countries and is open to lawyers, organisations and others to sign up to - by sending an e-mail to: jan.fermonat_private The text of the "appeal" is available in most EU languages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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