Bag's Rants

Watching the Spies.

Reading this article on wire taps or phone bugging.

Seems like most people are in favour of it. Civil Liberties groups don't see a problem and the police want to use it. So what is the issue? Personally, I'm all for it as well.

Seems it is the security people that are doing the work that don't want it used. Why is that? Well, it seems they are worried about the damage to work by MI5, MI6 and the police. It could also compromise techniques. Finally, it seems that there were many breaches in the rules which means they were legally bugging the wrong people and were illegally bugging others.

Now I don't know about you but I am concerned about putting operatives lives at risk and compromising security work but I fail to see how actually using this information can compromise these issues if the use is managed correctly.

I believe the real concern is that this work does not actually provide evidence that can stand up to close examination. A voice with a Geordie accent saying 'He won't know what hit him.' could be out of context and actually may not even the correct phone number and therefore the wrong person. I don't know about you but I can't tell the difference between one strong Geordie accent and another. So what they want is for it to be used as a 'and we have supporting voice intercepts which you can't hear for security reasons'. 'Trust us we work for the Government'.

They should put up to scrutiny of their work. The processes used should be validated. They are not above the law. Most people interesting in Privacy knows that all phone conversations and EMail in the UK are intercepted and scanned by the US anyway as part of a reciprocal agreement to deliberately bypass privacy laws by each Government. Follow the rules not the intent.

We can validate the legal process and have the recording used in court for 90% of criminal cases without any issues. Most criminals don't know the calls are being recorded. So they will hardly be in the position to compromise the resources. Evidence shown and used in the case which can be easily validated.

The next 9% will be the suspected terrorists. Who are networking with yet another MI6 mole or have been marked as suspect for some reason. Making arrangements to bring terror to the UK. Sources could be compromised here. However, to have the data validated and sanitised should be possible without compromising anything. If that is not possible then leave it out. Let's face it if it is the only bit of evidence they have then there is something wrong.

The other 1% are likely to be Foreign Governments and the like and we are unlikely to see them in court anyway. So no sources compromised there at all. If it needs to be used in some sort of validation then it is likely that the listener will have some security clearances. If not change the decision maker or grant clearances.

Oh! Getting too close and peeking at the inner workings of the intelligence community is starting to make them panic. Accountability here we come.

posted by Bag @ 10:00 am