Cory Doctorow at 10:16 PM March 11, 2010

The Olympics are coming to London, so our civil liberties are going out the window: because nothing epitomises the spirit of global competition and cooperation like corporate bullying and unfettered truncheon-waving.

Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor items to sporting events.

"I think there will be lots of people doing things completely innocently who are going to be caught by this, and some people will be prosecuted, while others will be so angry about it that they will start complaining about civil liberties issues," Chadwick said.

"I think what it will potentially do is to prompt a debate about the commercial nature of the Games. Do big sponsors have too much influence over the Games?"

Eyes turn to "value for money" London 2012 (Thanks, Bobby!)

(Image: More Riot Police a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Kashklick's photostream)

While catching up on local news, I was shocked to read that a school near my home town of Worcester has installed CCTV in the children's toilets.

I wasn't shocked that it happened, because I have read so many stories recently about people in low level positions of authority who assume they have a 'right to spy' that trumps any else's right to privacy. What shocked me was the headline itself. It didn't say "Headmaster arrested for installing CCTV in children's toilets", or "Headmaster resigns after being caught installing CCTV in children's toilets." It didn't even say "Headmaster apologises after installing CCTV in children's toilets." Instead the headline was a plain and unadorned "Chelmsley Wood school puts CCTV in pupil toilets."

It's time for us to decide what sort of world we want our children to grow up in. Do we want them to learn by example that privacy is not a basic human right, or a guiding principle that the law proudly upholds, but a forgotten dream? Or is it time to say enough is enough?

We are in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance state. The school may not have broken any law, but that does not mean that we must accept this as just the latest step in the unstoppable erosion of our right to privacy. I believe it means that a law that sets reasonable, clearly defined limits on this sort of spying is long overdue. Unless we have that law, we will be powerless against the likes of Steve Chase, chief executive of Grace Academy, and his omnipresent cameras. He said, with no hint of sarcasm that the Sunday Mercury mentioned in their report, that the cameras were fitted 'due to health and safety concerns'.

I believe that we need to protect our children from the likes of Steve Chase. If you believe that too, then it's time to vote Pirate.

Schneier: CCTVs don't make us safer

By Cory Doctorow at 5:12 AM February 26, 2010

Bruce Schneier has written an outstanding essay for CNN on why sticking CCTV cameras on every corner doesn't make us safer, and can make us less safe by opening us up to abuse, and by causing police resources to be misallocated. This is required reading for the twenty-first century. Bruce points out that where there's a specific threat in a specific place -- casinos worried about cheats, shops worried about shoplifters, parking garages worried about skulking muggers -- CCTVs have some use. But as a catch-all solution to crime, they just don't work well enough to justify their expense in resources and liberty.

Pervasive security cameras don't substantially reduce crime. This fact has been demonstrated repeatedly: in San Francisco, California, public housing; in a New York apartment complex; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; in Washington; in study after study in both the U.S. and the U.K. Nor are they instrumental in solving many crimes after the fact.

There are exceptions, of course, and proponents of cameras can always cherry-pick examples to bolster their argument. These success stories are what convince us; our brains are wired to respond more strongly to anecdotes than to data. But the data are clear: CCTV cameras have minimal value in the fight against crime.

Although it's comforting to imagine vigilant police monitoring every camera, the truth is very different, for a variety of reasons: technological limitations of cameras, organizational limitations of police and the adaptive abilities of criminals. No one looks at most CCTV footage until well after a crime is committed. And when the police do look at the recordings, it's very common for them to be unable to identify suspects. Criminals don't often stare helpfully at the lens and -- unlike the Dubai assassins -- tend to wear sunglasses and hats. Cameras break far too often.

Spy cameras won't make us safer

Body scanners were introduced after an alleged attempt to blow up a plane

The use of airport body scanners in the UK may be unlawful, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned.

Scanners already in place at Heathrow and Manchester Airports may be breaking discrimination law as well as breaching passengers' rights to privacy, it said.

It has now written a letter to Transport Secretary Lord Adonis.

The government said security concerns meant scanners had been needed immediately, but it was carrying out an equalities impact assessment.

The scanners are being introduced in response to the alleged attempt to blow up an American plane on 25 December.

But the commission said it had "serious doubts" that the decision to roll them out in UK airports was legal.

It said one of its chief concerns was over how people would be selected for the scans.

'Vulnerable groups'

Its chairman, Trevor Phillips, said: "The right to life is the ultimate human right and we support the government's review of security policies.

Given the current security threat level, we believe it was essential to start introducing scanners immediately Department for Transport spokesperson

"State action like border checks, stop-and-search and full body scanning are undertaken for good reasons.

"But, without proper care, such policies can end up being applied in ways which do discriminate against vulnerable groups or harm good community relations."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne MP agreed.

He said: "The government seems intent on pressing ahead with the use of body scanners without addressing any of the privacy concerns and safeguard issues raised by the Liberal Democrats and others.

"The commission is right to suggest that security measures cannot simply be introduced without due respect for the rule of law."

Code of practice

The commission has previously said scanners could breach an individual's right to privacy under the Human Rights Act.

It has also previously written to the home secretary to ask that he set out in detail the justification for bringing in the scanners, and clarify what safeguards will be put in place.

They produce "naked" images of passengers, and the commission then said it was concerned especially for the privacy of certain groups such as disabled people, the elderly, children and the transgendered community.

The Department for Transport said it had published a staff code of practice for the scanners.

A spokesperson said passengers who were randomly selected for screening would not be chosen because of any personal characteristics.

"Given the current security threat level, we believe it was essential to start introducing scanners immediately.

"We are currently carrying out a full equalities impact assessment on the code of practice, which will be published shortly when we begin a public consultation on these issues."

 

Adam Fresco and Fiona Hamilton

Police are planning to use an anti-terror law deemed unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights across the country during the London Olympics, The Times has learnt.

Senior officers are considering using Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 at every Underground and railway station nationwide.

Privacy campaigners criticised the proposal yesterday. The powers would enable police to stop and search members of the public without any suspicion that they were involved in terrorism.

The Times understands that this would be the first time that the powers would have been used across such a wide area. Police said that Section 44, which must be granted by the Home Secretary for a designated area, would be used only in the event of an escalated terror threat. Officers are being trained to use behavioural profiling to spot suspicious characters during stop- and-search operations.

Privacy experts said that the plan could heighten tensions between the public and police. Simon Davies, the director of Privacy International, said: “The history of stop and search in this country is abhorrent. I wouldn’t trust the police to make the right judgment.

“It is well known that stop-and- search powers have created extraordinary tensions among a range of ethnic groups,” he said. “There’s no doubt that extension of the use of those powers would exacerbate those tensions.”

Last month the use of the terror law was criticised by the European Court of Human Rights. It found that Section 44 violated individual freedoms guaranteeing the right to private life.

The court said that the power to search an individual’s clothing and belongings in public involved an element of humiliation that was a clear interference with the right to privacy. Judges also attacked the arbitrary nature of the power as well as the way in which its use was authorised.

Despite this, Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, said that police would continue to use Section 44. The Home Office is appealing against the European Court ruling.

The Metropolitan Police agreed last year to limit its use of the powers after critics claimed that it was discriminating against minority groups. However, Assistant Chief Constable Steve Thomas, of the British Transport Police, told The Times that the powers would be considered for 2012.

Mr Thomas, the Olympic National Transport Security Co-ordinator for the Home Office, said: “If there is a severe level of threat we will be looking to use Section 44 at every Underground and railway station. We are planning on the assumption that there will be a severe threat to the UK during the Games, on the basis that we can then scale down rather than quickly scale up.” He said that if Section 44 was put in place across the country it would not mean that every station would be flooded with officers, but individual stations would be targeted as part of an operation.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, the campaigning organisation that brought the European Court case, said that while there was an obvious need for heightened precautions during the 2012 Games, Britain’s antiterrorism laws need to be “tightened up”. She said: “It would be incredibly dangerous to build Olympic security on such a legally flawed foundation.”

Justice department to accuse FBI of invoking crises to obtain details of more than 2,000 calls, Washington Post reports

• Chris McGreal in Washington
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 January 2010 20.06 GMT
• Article history

The US justice department is preparing a report which concludes that the FBI repeatedly broke the law by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist to obtain more than 2,000 telephone call records over four years from 2002, including those of journalists on US newspapers, according to emails obtained by the Washington Post.

The bureau also issued authorisations for the seizure of records after the fact, in order to justify unwarranted seizures.

The Washington Post said the emails show how counter-terrorism ­officials inside FBI headquarters breached regulations designed to protect civil liberties.

The FBI's general counsel, Valerie Caproni, told the Washington Post that the agency violated privacy laws by inventing non-existent terrorist threats to justify collecting the phone records. "We should have stopped those requests from being made that way," she said.

Caproni said that FBI's issuing of authorisations after the fact was a "good-hearted but not well thought-out" move to give the phone companies legal cover for handing over the records.

After the 9/11 attacks, the USA patriot act greatly expanded the government's ability to monitor American citizens, including increased access to their phone calls with the approval of lower-level officials than previously allowed. But the authorisation had to be tied to an open terrorism investigation.

The Washington Post said two FBI officers had raised concerns. Special agent Bassem Youssef observed that the necessary authorisations were not being sought before phone records were seized and were sometimes only given later in response to complaints from phone companies. Another official, Patrice Kopistansky of the FBI's legal office, noticed a similar problem. She also raised concerns when she was unable to get investigators to provide her with an open terrorism case to justify issuing relevant authorisation.

The Washington Post reported that Kopistansky and Youssef discussed the worsening "backlog" of cases without the necessary authorisations, or where false claims were made about terrorism emergencies. "I also understand some of these are being done as emergencies when they aren't necessarily emergencies," Kopistansky wrote to Youssef in April 2005.

The FBI subsequently issued a blanket authorisation covering all past searches, although its legality was questioned.

The Washington Post said journalists on the newspaper and the New York Times were among those whose phone records were illegally searched. The FBI later apologised to editors of both papers.

Casual shots of London's Gherkin attract stop and search just days after police were reminded street photography is no offence

• Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 December 2009 17.54 GMT
• Article history

Watch the footage taken by Paul Lewis during his standoff with City of London police
Link to this video

It felt like a minor terror alert. Four security guards were watching me, whispering into microphones on their collars. A plainclothes police officer had just covered my camera lens, mentioned the words "hostile reconnaissance" and told me I would be followed around the city if I moved.

Two uniformed officers were on their way to stop and search me under section 44 of the Terrorism Act, he said. Special Branch, the police counter-terrorism unit linked to the secret services, had been informed.

It had taken less than two minutes from the first click of my camera. My subject was the Gherkin, an iconic London landmark photographed hundreds of times a day and, as it turned out, the ideal venue to test claims from a growing number of photographers claiming they cannot take a picture in public without being harassed under anti-terrorist laws.

This was the first week in which police had been ordered to take a more sensible approach to street photography. By Monday morning all 43 police forces in England and Wales had received a memorandum warning them that officers were "confused" over stop and search powers.

"Officers should be reminded that it is not an offence for a member of the public or journalist to take photographs of a public building and use of cameras by the public does not ordinarily permit use of stop and search powers," the circular said.

Andy Trotter, chief constable of the British transport police, who drafted the guidance for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said photographers should be "should be left alone to get on with what they are doing".

The shift in policy was a direct response to weeks of negative media reports surrounding photographers, amateur and professional, who said they were being unfairly stopped, usually under section 44, a law allowing officers to stop and search without need for "suspicion" within designated areas in the UK.

While the use of anti-terrorist stop and search powers has fallen in recent months, a succession of high-profile incidents involving the use of the legislation against photographers has embarrassed senior officers, who privately concede that the rank and file are misusing their powers on the ground.

Recent examples include Jeff Overs, a BBC photographer who told the Andrew Marr Show he was stopped under suspicion of terrorism reconnaissance while photographing St Paul's Cathedral, and Andrew White, an amateur photographer questioned by two police community support officers for photographing Christmas lights in Brighton.

In April two Austrian tourists were forced to delete their shots after being stopped by police in Walthamstow; and Alex Turner, an amateur photographer, was arrested under section 44 after taking images of a fish and chip shop in Kent.

Earlier this week Grant Smith, an architecture photographer, was apprehended under section 44 by City of London police while photographing Sir Christopher Wren's Christ Church, around the corner from the Gherkin.

Smith, a critic of the stop and search policy, had been wearing a badge that read "I am a photographer not a terrorist" when police approached him. To top it off, when an ITN London Tonight crew arrived in the area to cover the story they reportedly found themselves subject to similar treatment.

When I arrived at the Gherkin at 11am yesterday I was stopped by a security guard as I walked around the side of the building. When he told me I had strayed on to private land, I returned to the pavement, but declined his repeated requests to show him the images on my camera.

Back on the pavement, a second security guard informed me that under "anti-terrorism" I was permitted to photograph or film the top end of the building, but the lower half, which included the reception area, fire exits and security cameras, was off-bounds.

Seconds later the City of London plainclothes police officer appeared on my left. Clearly he was not keen on my filming him, but he did not suggest there was any law that could stop that. I said that while I did not want to be difficult I was aware that I did not have to disclose my identity or tell him what I was doing.

After a brief dispute over his ID, the officer asked what I was filming and I replied that – while I did not want to be difficult – I did not have to tell him who I was or what I was doing. I felt adolescent saying it, but I told him that was my "right".

Looking a bit bewildered, the officer called Special Branch on his mobile phone. They sent two other City of London police to come and search me under section 44 and, while we were waiting for them, the plainclothes officers indicated that I was not the only person to be questioned in this way.

"People are very sensitive," he said. "People will take tourist photographs but other people have a conduct, or manner, which raises the [security] guys' suspicions."

I had some sympathy for the PC, who it turned out had been at the Gherkin by coincidence. He seemed to have been as much a victim of overzealous security guards as me. He was, he said, only doing his job.

But while both of us were at their whim, I pointed out that it was he, not security, who had notified Special Branch. When we spoke on the phone the next day the officer stressed that he was just doing his duty.

The two uniformed City of London police officers who arrived shortly after seemed determined, from the outset, to look at the images on my camera. Their insistence seemed to be stretching their powers to the limit. Section 44 does not specify that officers have the power to look at images, although it does empower them to search anything "carried" by the person they have stopped. Police have interpreted the law to mean that they can view images to establish whether they are "of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism".

To futher complicate the matter, police require a court order to view images captured by a journalist (in fairness, in my case it was not until the end that they knew I worked for the Guardian).

Anna Mazzola, a civil liberties lawyer who advises the National Union of Journalists and whom I consulted, told me that in general if police can view anyone's images, they can only do so in "very limited circumstances".

This hardly seemed an exceptional circumstance, and I thought there were no obvious grounds to suspect there could be terrorist material on my camera. They were good enough to call Special Branch – twice – to check the rules.

By the time they looked at my images, threatening me with arrest for obstruction if I didn't show them, the officers had stopped a second photographer. My colleague, Martin Godwin, had been spotted across the road, where he was using a long lens to take pictures of me. They also stopped him under section 44 and looked at his pictures.

City of London police have since defended the officers' actions in a statement: "Public safety is our first priority. We responded to legitimate concern from our community about the behaviour of an individual close to an iconic building and acted accordingly. According to legislation, digital images may be viewed as part of a search under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 provided viewing is to determine whether the images are of a kind which could be used in conjunction with terrorism.

"In this case, the individual refused to explain what he was doing, so officers had to carry out further investigation on the street."

Paul Marks, technology correspondent

We reported last week on plans to enforce copyright law by forcing internet service providers to spy on consumers to detect and report every piece of copied music, movies, e-books, games and software.

Now one UK ISP, Virgin Media, is trialling some of the technology needed to do that on about 1.6 million of its customers.

Provided by Detica, a subsidiary of defence firm BAE Systems, the system is being used to try and gauge the size of the alleged piracy problem. CView, as the system is known, will take a snapshot of the scale of peer-to-peer music transfers over a few months.

It will do so by copying every packet of data that passes by, and looking for the digital signatures of data transferred using the popular bittorrent, gnutella, and edonkey file sharing protocols.

Whenever it finds a data packet that matches, it will extract the code these protocols use to identify the contents of the packet.

CView will then compare that code with a database of "musical fingerprints" to identify any music being shared, allowing it to work out if the data packet infringes copyright.

As a result, Virgin will find out how much file-sharing traffic is infringing copyright, and what the most-pirated tracks and albums are, the Register reports.

CView won't be able to finger individual users, because the IP addresses that identify each computer's connection will be stripped from every packet. But some Virgin customers are worried about the potential for it to be used for snooping at a later date.

CView's technology could conceivably be used to identify people accessing certain data, for example.

Or it could block certain content, in much the same way as China's "great firewall".

The anonymisation of the data in Virgin's assessment phase, and the fact that no humans see it, should mean the technology does not count as illegal interception, says Richard Clayton at the University of Cambridge's security lab.

But he says on the security group's blog that "it may take some case law before anyone can say for sure".