On 1 July 2012 13:00, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
None of which will matter if the law is so broadly drawn that Wikimedia UK or even an individual Wikimedian could be held to be an operator of a telecommunications system.
It's entirely foreseeable that UK police would consider anyone with 'higher' rights (probably +sysop, definitely +bureaucrat, and without-doubt +oversight, +checkuser, and +steward) as having sufficient level of control and access to privileged data that normal members of the public wouldn't that they count as 'operators'.
In the worst, most paranoid case, this would mean that privs would have to be removed from all Wikimedians resident in the UK or otherwise subject to UK jurisdiction (e.g. employed by a company with a UK office, or having financial accounts run by banks with UK offices, or occasionally flying to/through the UK, or having family who would be similarly affected).
If this were to be the case, the only rational choice for the community, given the normal criminal gagging clauses for admitting helping the police in such cases and so massive uncertainly and doubt, would be to de-priv every user who might be affected by these rules, for WMF to sack every staff member so affected[*], and for the community to have to consciously avoid flying via London to any event, ever.
I'd imagine - hope - that the movement would be concerned about this state of affairs. And I'd suggest for those that think this goes way beyond what the law would ever end up being this 'bad' should read the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, or study the effect of Brazilian and Italian heavy regulation of the Internet that have led to US-based companies' staff being arrested when changing 'planes in these countries. Trivialising this may well prove a very bad idea.
[*] I declare my interest.
J.