Does Wikimedia UK have any intention of participating in the discussions around the Draft Communications Bill?
The bill, if passed, would make it such that the Secretary of State may make an order to "ensure that communications data is available to be obtained from telecommunications providers by relevant public authorities" (§1 (1)(a)).
The bill sets out a system for how such a system would operate, which we'll get to in a second, but let's just see whether or not Wikipedia, Wikimedia or anyone related to our projects/movement/etc. is affected.
Telecommunications providers are, according to §28 of the draft bill, those who operate a "telecommunications system", which they define as "a system (including the apparatus comprised in it) that exists (whether wholly or partly in the United Kingdom or elsewhere)"—so, that means anywhere since it either wholly or partly exists either in the United Kingdom or it doesn't–"for the purpose of facilitating the transmission of communications by any means involving the use of electrical or electro-magnetic energy".
Unless we plan to request the Foundation switch over to servers that run on clockwork and carrier pigeons rather than electricity (if we did, they'd probably still count as a 'postal system' and still be regulated by the act), I think we're pretty much covered.
Does Wikimedia UK operate a telecommunications system in this manner? I'm not sure. It might do. I'm not a lawyer.
What would happen if the Secretary of State were to send a letter to Wikimedia UK demanding that WMUK, as a provider of a telecommunications system, install a device in the office of the Secretary of State's choosing? Richard has higher permissions on English Wikipedia, meaning that the Secretary of State could have access to CheckUser data, which would most probably count as "traffic data" under the terms of the draft bill: that is, data which "identifies, or purports to identify, any person, apparatus or location to or from which the communications is or may be transmitted".
How about if someone who operates a number of, uh, "telecommunications services" - i.e. scripts running on Toolserver - were served with a similar notice and asked to install a backdoor to Toolserver which the Secretary of State were to use to gain access to material on the Toolserver? (Okay, there's nothing *that* juicy on there.)
Same for OTRS, same for the third-party services which Brian McNeil operates for the Wikinews community (wikinewsie.org), same for any Wikimedian with a computer (hey, it's an electrical/electro-magnetic device that facilitates communication: that can mean anything from a telephone exchange to an individual smartphone or a stereo speaker).
This seems like an extremely broad and non-specific bill: do we have any idea how it might affect Wikimedia and Wikimedians?
Pretty much all those examples are operated by the WMF, which isn't subject to UK law, so I don't really see a problem.
On 30 June 2012 15:48, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
Does Wikimedia UK have any intention of participating in the discussions around the Draft Communications Bill?
The bill, if passed, would make it such that the Secretary of State may make an order to "ensure that communications data is available to be obtained from telecommunications providers by relevant public authorities" (§1 (1)(a)).
The bill sets out a system for how such a system would operate, which we'll get to in a second, but let's just see whether or not Wikipedia, Wikimedia or anyone related to our projects/movement/etc. is affected.
Telecommunications providers are, according to §28 of the draft bill, those who operate a "telecommunications system", which they define as "a system (including the apparatus comprised in it) that exists (whether wholly or partly in the United Kingdom or elsewhere)"—so, that means anywhere since it either wholly or partly exists either in the United Kingdom or it doesn't–"for the purpose of facilitating the transmission of communications by any means involving the use of electrical or electro-magnetic energy".
Unless we plan to request the Foundation switch over to servers that run on clockwork and carrier pigeons rather than electricity (if we did, they'd probably still count as a 'postal system' and still be regulated by the act), I think we're pretty much covered.
Does Wikimedia UK operate a telecommunications system in this manner? I'm not sure. It might do. I'm not a lawyer.
What would happen if the Secretary of State were to send a letter to Wikimedia UK demanding that WMUK, as a provider of a telecommunications system, install a device in the office of the Secretary of State's choosing? Richard has higher permissions on English Wikipedia, meaning that the Secretary of State could have access to CheckUser data, which would most probably count as "traffic data" under the terms of the draft bill: that is, data which "identifies, or purports to identify, any person, apparatus or location to or from which the communications is or may be transmitted".
How about if someone who operates a number of, uh, "telecommunications services" - i.e. scripts running on Toolserver - were served with a similar notice and asked to install a backdoor to Toolserver which the Secretary of State were to use to gain access to material on the Toolserver? (Okay, there's nothing *that* juicy on there.)
Same for OTRS, same for the third-party services which Brian McNeil operates for the Wikinews community (wikinewsie.org), same for any Wikimedian with a computer (hey, it's an electrical/electro-magnetic device that facilitates communication: that can mean anything from a telephone exchange to an individual smartphone or a stereo speaker).
This seems like an extremely broad and non-specific bill: do we have any idea how it might affect Wikimedia and Wikimedians?
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 30 June 2012 16:02, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Pretty much all those examples are operated by the WMF, which isn't subject to UK law, so I don't really see a problem.
I would suggest Tom also post this message to wikimedia-l, for comment.
- d.
There is the 'they came for the others and I did nothing...' argument. Should we be thinking of whether we should contribute to this debate on behalf of others less protected?
On 30 June 2012 16:13, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 30 June 2012 16:02, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Pretty much all those examples are operated by the WMF, which isn't subject to UK law, so I don't really see a problem.
I would suggest Tom also post this message to wikimedia-l, for comment.
- d.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On Jun 30, 2012 4:53 PM, "Jon Davies" jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
There is the 'they came for the others and I did nothing...' argument.
Should we be thinking of whether we should contribute to this debate on behalf of others less protected?
If, by contribute, you mean respond to public consultations, then yes. I think we should respond to any consultations on topics that have a significant impact on the internet since, as a top 5 website, we have something to add.
If you mean being a vocal campaigner, then I think we should only do that when we are directly impacted.
As individuals that is entirely up to us. As an organisation I would suggest that we stick very clearly at only commenting on legislation that would affect us. Which begs the question, is it us the UK chapter or us the Wikimedia movement? My view is that we could meaningfully comment on the broader movement.
In this case if it could be argued that this would make the UK even less attractive as a site for a Wikimedia datacentre, then it would be reasonable to point that out.
As for the arguments as to whether this applies to permissions Richard has in his capacity as a volunteer; We need to keep a clear distinction between what people do as volunteers and what they do on behalf of the UK chapter.
Regards
WSC
On 30 June 2012 16:52, Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
There is the 'they came for the others and I did nothing...' argument. Should we be thinking of whether we should contribute to this debate on behalf of others less protected?
On 30 June 2012 16:13, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 30 June 2012 16:02, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Pretty much all those examples are operated by the WMF, which isn't subject to UK law, so I don't really see a problem.
I would suggest Tom also post this message to wikimedia-l, for comment.
- d.
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Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). It is an independent non-profit organization with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
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On Saturday, 30 June 2012 at 20:22, WereSpielChequers wrote:
As for the arguments as to whether this applies to permissions Richard has in his capacity as a volunteer; We need to keep a clear distinction between what people do as volunteers and what they do on behalf of the UK chapter.
That wasn't the argument I made. ;-)
I am perfectly capable of making the distinction between volunteer community roles and chapter work and how that all works. My problem is that the Draft Communications Bill may not be able to do likewise given how vaguely it is worded.
The Foundation and the projects are kept at arms length because of s.230 of the Communications Decency Act in the U.S. so that the Foundation isn't held legally responsible as the "publisher" of content on Wikipedia, but instead delegates that publication to the community, and instead seeing themselves as the hosting company. Fine. I expect the Foundation lawyers know how to do just that, and where the line is.
But, the problem is under the Draft Communications Bill, if the Secretary of State wished to serve "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia" generally with a s.1 notice, how would that play out? Could WMUK be held responsible under this Bill? How about individual volunteers?
(I picked Richard not just to pick on him, but because the law won't necessarily make the fine distinction between him being an employee and him being a volunteer who happens to have CheckUser access. We can make that distinction, the law possibly won't.)
Okay, we could go one further: if Wikimedia UK were to hire as a developer someone who has sysadmin access to the Wikimedia servers (there are a few who are UK-based), how would that play out with this law?
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.
On 30 June 2012 22:45, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
The Foundation and the projects are kept at arms length because of s.230 of the Communications Decency Act in the U.S. so that the Foundation isn't held legally responsible as the "publisher" of content on Wikipedia, but instead delegates that publication to the community, and instead seeing themselves as the hosting company. Fine. I expect the Foundation lawyers know how to do just that, and where the line is.
But, the problem is under the Draft Communications Bill, if the Secretary of State wished to serve "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia" generally with a s.1 notice, how would that play out? Could WMUK be held responsible under this Bill? How about individual volunteers?
This draft act isn't aimed at publishers, it is aimed at service providers, so it would definitely be the WMF that is considered responsible for Wikipedia. I can't see any other interpretation.
On 30/06/12 23:15, Thomas Dalton wrote:
This draft act isn't aimed at publishers, it is aimed at service providers, so it would definitely be the WMF that is considered responsible for Wikipedia. I can't see any other interpretation.
Is it true that the servers serve in one country and the squids cache and serve onwards from another country?
Gordo
There are four servers/squids: pmtpa Hostway (formerly PowerMedium) in Tampa, Florida. sdtpa Equinix (formerley Switch and Data) in Tampa, Florida. knams Kennisnet in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.esams EvoSwitch in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Nothing in the UK!
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Disclaimer viewable at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
On 1 July 2012 10:55, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 30/06/12 23:15, Thomas Dalton wrote:
This draft act isn't aimed at publishers, it is aimed at service providers, so it would definitely be the WMF that is considered responsible for Wikipedia. I can't see any other interpretation.
Is it true that the servers serve in one country and the squids cache and serve onwards from another country?
Gordo
______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-lhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 01/07/12 10:59, Richard Symonds wrote:
There are four servers/squids:
pmtpa Hostway (formerly PowerMedium) in Tampa, Florida. sdtpa Equinix (formerley Switch and Data) in Tampa, Florida. knams Kennisnet in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. esams EvoSwitch in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Nothing in the UK!
Thanks.
So, USA and Europe. But not the UK.
Gordo
On 1 July 2012 19:44, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
So, USA and Europe. But not the UK.
Yes. Rest assured the WMF is not so foolish as to base anything in the UK.
- d.
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 8:19 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 1 July 2012 19:44, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
So, USA and Europe. But not the UK.
Yes. Rest assured the WMF is not so foolish as to base anything in the UK.
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. Which is exactly why it would be nice if someone at Wikimedia UK were to look into this as an issue. I wouldn't bring it up if it didn't seem like there was an issue.
Feel free to all continue to pat me on the head while saying "no UK servers, no problem"... even though the point of the bill is that the servers needn't be in the UK for the government to make it a problem. Again, read the draft bill. It's insane.
On 1 Jul 2012, at 21:00, Tom Morris wrote:
On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 8:19 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 1 July 2012 19:44, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
So, USA and Europe. But not the UK.
Yes. Rest assured the WMF is not so foolish as to base anything in the UK.
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. Which is exactly why it would be nice if someone at Wikimedia UK were to look into this as an issue. I wouldn't bring it up if it didn't seem like there was an issue.
Are you volunteering? I don't believe that we have WMUK staff or trustee time that can be put towards leading a discussion of the details and implications that the bill could have for Wikimedia (globally or locally), or to coordinate writing a response to the bill - but if a volunteer is interested and willing to do that then that could be good.
Thanks, Mike
On Sunday, 1 July 2012 at 21:22, Michael Peel wrote:
Are you volunteering? I don't believe that we have WMUK staff or trustee time that can be put towards leading a discussion of the details and implications that the bill could have for Wikimedia (globally or locally), or to coordinate writing a response to the bill - but if a volunteer is interested and willing to do that then that could be good.
I'm not a lawyer. I may email the Foundation legal people and see if they care.
Also, I hastily wrote the response to the last government consultation (on copyright and Hargreaves). ;-)
I'll have a chat with Jon tomorrow and we'll see what we can do!
Richard Symonds, Wikimedia UK On Jul 1, 2012 9:58 PM, "Tom Morris" tom@tommorris.org wrote:
On Sunday, 1 July 2012 at 21:22, Michael Peel wrote:
Are you volunteering? I don't believe that we have WMUK staff or trustee
time that can be put towards leading a discussion of the details and implications that the bill could have for Wikimedia (globally or locally), or to coordinate writing a response to the bill - but if a volunteer is interested and willing to do that then that could be good.
I'm not a lawyer. I may email the Foundation legal people and see if they care.
Also, I hastily wrote the response to the last government consultation (on copyright and Hargreaves). ;-)
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 1 Jul 2012, at 21:58, Tom Morris wrote:
On Sunday, 1 July 2012 at 21:22, Michael Peel wrote:
Are you volunteering? I don't believe that we have WMUK staff or trustee time that can be put towards leading a discussion of the details and implications that the bill could have for Wikimedia (globally or locally), or to coordinate writing a response to the bill - but if a volunteer is interested and willing to do that then that could be good.
I'm not a lawyer. I may email the Foundation legal people and see if they care.
Fair enough. :-) Although someone leading a discussion/response like this doesn't need to be a lawyer, since they can always then focus on persuading friendly lawyers to get involved as needed. ;-) But talking to WMF legal people would be a good approach to take.
Also, I hastily wrote the response to the last government consultation (on copyright and Hargreaves). ;-)
Many thanks for doing that. :-)
Thanks, Mike
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.
On 1 July 2012 21:46, James Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
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'.
How about we avoid spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt?
The courts have always been able to subpoena people to provide evidence. This act is about requiring people to store information so that it is available should someone want to subpoena it. Do you think the Secretary of State is going to order a British checkuser to download the whole checkuser log everyday and store it just in case the authorities later think there might be something in there relevant to an investigation?
On Sunday, 1 July 2012 at 22:41, Thomas Dalton wrote:
How about we avoid spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt?
When it comes to FUD-spreaders, James F. isn't high on my list.
As for doubt, I'm okay with a bit more doubt. A rather effective little method of finding things out we call "science" rather relies on doubt. People ought to doubt government assurances that all will be fine and see whether what the law actually says as currently written will go too far.
Does Wikimedia UK operate a telecommunications system in this manner? I'm not sure. It might do. I'm not a lawyer.
I'm not sure either, but I am sure that Wikimedia UK doesn't operate Wikipedia. So whatever impact this act would have on Wikimedia UK could be isolated with relative ease from Wikipedia.
If someone can demonstrate that this proposed legislation *will* have an impact on us, then I think the board would be fairly easy to persuade that we should take a position on it. However it doesn't pose the same kind of immediate threat to our community as (say) SOPA or the Italian Gagging Law did, so it's less obvious that we should spend our time and energy on it.
Chris
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