> From: Tom Morris <tom(a)tommorris.org>
> The reason I think we should think about it is precisely because it's so very badly worded.
>
> Without some informed legal thinking about what exactly the bill is likely to mean in
> practice, we probably can't know for sure.
Unfortunately, I don't expect informed legal thinking to feature
particularly largely in the government push to get this rammed through.
So-far they've had one twerp stand up and, in response to a query on
https encryption, say the black boxes planned for ISP datacentres will
"just work". And, with all government legislation, they have to provide
an impact assessment. According to the Home Office, implementing the
Communications Data Bill will have zero carbon impact.
On the legal thinking aspect, I've got that covered with one of my dozen
FoIA requests; a submission to the AG's office asking when they were
first contacted, what input they provided, and minutes of all meetings
related to the draft.
On the "make them look like proper charlies" front, I've asked the
Commons, Lords, and Home Office for a spreadsheet of every web page
they've accessed since the coalition came to power, with number of hits
per page. There's a high probability this may dig up something deeply
embarrassing which, from a journalistic viewpoint, makes it worthwhile -
as well as pointedly illustrating the deeply intrusive nature of the
proposal.
As will come as no surprise, one of my requests is now with the
Information Commissioner's Office in the form of a complaint over
failure to comply and disclose.
Brian McNeil
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