openrightsgroup – Terence Eden’s Blog

If You Have Nothing To Hide... You Still Have Something To Fear

@edent — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:00:55 +0000

One of the most pernicious memes is "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." It implies that the only reasons for opposing a law is that you would find yourself guilty under it.

The phrases is, I think, a contender for a new form of Godwin's Rule. Any discussion about laws eventually boils down to "Only a criminal would oppose this measure."

The annoying thing is, it's particularly hard to refute. In some cases, yes, it may be felt that the law unfairly criminalises behaviour which one currently engages in. Most people, however, argue from theory. The Pirate Party has a nice little primer on objections to the argument.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were some practical, real world, examples of how having "nothing to hide" can still be dangerous?

The Government wants to introduce the Communications Data Bill (AKA the Snoopers' Charter). There has been a Joint Committee investigating these proposals - as part of their investigations, they reported:

191. It is not only the public authorities which make errors. The annual report shows that in two cases a CSP disclosed incorrect data in response to a request, the police took action on the basis of this data, and members of the public were wrongly detained and accused of crimes.
Draft Communications Data Bill Joint Committee Contents - 5 Safeguards

So, there we have it. People with nothing to hide caught up in a dragnet of incompetence. Here we have highly responsible state bodies unable or unwilling to verify data correctly - the fall out is that innocent people have their lives severely disrupted

If this bill passes, every single email and text you send, every website you visit, every link you accidentally click, will have its details recorded in a database somewhere. It will then become trivial for the CPS to trawl this vast mine of information looking for anything they regard as "suspicious". And if they mistakenly arrest you because of their deep-grained institutional ability to cock-up - or if they dislike your legal hobbies? Well, that's just too bad.

That's why I support the Open Rights Group - and you should too. They've submitted statements to the Joint Committee, they've tirelessly briefed the press, and are organising a citizens' lobbying of Parliament.

ORG want to fund a part-time Legal Officer to help them with their work - they started with a goal of getting 150 new members, now they are only 30 people short of their target. They need you to join for just £5 per month.

Every supporter donating at least £5 per month by direct debit receives a free copy of Rapture of the Nerds co-authored by Cory Doctorow, a member of the Advisory Council and Charles Stross, one of ORG's founding members.

Obligatory Cartoon

Helen Goodman MP is "Particularly Stupid"

@edent — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:00:42 +0000

I remarked earlier about Helen Goodman MP and her total lack of technical knowledge. An MP being a bit behind the times isn't the greatest shock - but she's Labour's Shadow Minister for Culture, Media, and Sport - that's a big deal!

This year, Claire Perry MP produced an "independent" report into online child protection. By "independent" I mean "produced by vested interests including religious groups".

It makes for pretty tedious reading, however you may get a laugh from the antics of our MPs on page 86 when they start discussing Internet filters...

Helen Goodman: I’m sorry, maybe I’m particularly stupid, but I haven’t understood how I get this software or this kit or whatever it is, this filter thingy that you click or whatever without buying a new computer and I don’t want to spend a thousand pounds just to have a filter. I just haven’t understood what I do, and you’ve been talking to us and I’ve been in this room for half an hour.
Matt Lambert: You can download any number of parental control software for free...
Helen Goodman: But I don’t know how to download parental controls. I can send an email, I can click onto Windows but the minute you talk about downloading software, my brain goes bzzzz.
Matt Lambert: Ok, I’m sorry I’m using a technical term, but if you go to search and you ask for parental controls, you will find, whichever search engine you’re using, you’ll find any number of free options including ours.
Jonny Shipp: If you talk to your Service Provider, they’ll help you, I think, mostly.
Helen Goodman: How do you talk to them?
Jonny Shipp: The service provider that provides your internet connection at home.
Helen Goodman: You mean you phone them up?
Jonny Shipp: Yes, or however you’d normally talk to them.
Helen Goodman: I don’t normally talk to them very often.
Fiona Mactaggart: The point that Helen is rather effectively illustrating is the point that, this is the point I was trying to make about being stupid, about the fact that for this best to work, particularly when children are more technically aware than their parents, they know how to get around better than mum and dad, that actually there has to be something which is really simple and which kind of delivers itself to your door...

The "particularly stupid" Helen Goodman speaks for the Labour party on matters of Culture, Media, and Sport. Which, in our twisted democracy, also means "The Internet".

I'm not saying that someone with such responsibility needs to be able to compile their own software, or rebuild a PC. But it would be nice if they understood how to install software.

On an entirely unrelated note, please join the Open Rights Group today. They're doing great work trying to stop Parliament from destroying the Internet.

More people are being prosecuted for free speech on social media, copyright trolls are lurking and website blocking injunctions need tackling: ORG is ready to bring the fight for digital rights to the courts.

Every supporter donating at least £5 per month by direct debit receives a free copy of Rapture of the Nerds co-authored by Cory Doctorow, a member of our Advisory Council and Charles Stross, one of ORG's founding members.

ORG needs to fund a new position: a legal expert who can co-ordinate a crack-team of volunteer lawyers, perform thorough legal research, and create new case law to actively prevent potential threats to civil liberties.

Please help ORG achieve it goal:

150 new supporters will allow ORG to start our legal project.

300 new supporters will allow ORG to pay a Legal Officer full time.

Please set up a Direct Debit today.

ORG supporters usually give between £5 and £10 each month, but please be as generous as you can afford to be.

Further discussion on HackerNews.

The War of The Internet Has Begun

@edent — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 09:10:01 +0000

No one would have believed in the first years of the twenty-first century that the online world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences lesser than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various blogs they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a woman with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

With infinite complacency men went twittering and facebooking over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over the Internet.

No one gave a thought to the older political classes as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of Digital Interference as impossible or improbable.

It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most online users fancied there might be government Twitter accounts, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise.

Yet across the gulf of the music industry, the film lobby and the security contractors, intellects narrow and cool and unsympathetic, regarded our Internet with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

HIT PLAY NOW!

Download the glorious MIDI file!

Please join the Open Rights Group today. They're doing great work trying to stop Parliament from destroying the Internet.

Please help ORG achieve it goal:

150 new supporters will allow ORG to start our legal project.

300 new supporters will allow ORG to pay a Legal Officer full time.

Please set up a Direct Debit today.

ORG supporters usually give between £5 and £10 each month, but please be as generous as you can afford to be.

NB - the affiliate style links are for ORG's member-get-member program. If you'd prefer to join without giving me as the referrer, please use http://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/.

Protesting the Digital Economy Bill

@edent — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:03:11 +0000

On Wednesday, I attended the "Stop Disconnection Demo" to protest the Digital Economy Bill outside parliament.

Protestors

I've been on a few protests in my time. Anti-war, anti-nukes, anti-tuition fees and the like. This was one of the most cheerful protests I've ever attended. The protesters were friendly and erudite. Passers-by seemed happy to take our literature. The speakers - while hard to hear - spoke with knowledge ad passion. Even the police (!) were charming and even took some of our leaflets.

Protesters

Despite what El Reg reported, there was a good crowd there - maybe 250 people.

Overall, a worthwhile and useful day.

Please, write to your MP to ask them to debate this bill.

ORG Election

@edent — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:00:42 +0000

Voting is now open for the Open Rights Group Board of Directors election.

I'd be delighted to answer any questions you may have. Post them as a comment here, send me an SMS or an email and I'll do my best to answer.

A quick look over the candidate statements shows that we're all fairly well aligned. For no reason other than they're very Web 2.0, I've made a Wordle of the candidate statements.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic License. Thanks to those who helped me craft my statement.

Voting is open to members only. Votes have to be returned by 15 February 2010.