Pubdate: Thu, 13 Jun 2002
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Telegraph Group Limited
Contact:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Author: Boris Johnson
Note: Boris Johnson is MP for Henley and editor of The Spectator.

IT'S HERE, IT'S NOW: BIG BROTHER'S REIGN HAS BEGUN

Of all the weapons in the armoury of New Labour, there is nothing more 
terrifying than Excalibur, the party's computer database. Tories speak of 
it in hushed, broken tones, as the woad-painted tribes must once have 
discussed the tortoise technique of the legions.

To all those who have suffered from its rapid rebuttal function, it has all 
the mystique of the Maxim gun when first deployed against the wondering 
Zulus. Until the 1997 election, nothing like it had been seen before. It 
was fast. It could take on anything. It was lethal. It was to Excalibur 
that Dan Corry, one of Stephen Byers's special advisers, sent his notorious 
memo on May 23.

Hello there, he said, Stephen Byers's office here. Do you think you could 
find out about these people from the Paddington Survivors' Group? I mean, 
are they Tories? Immediately Excalibur's circuits began to whiz and pop; 
its search engines scoured the capacious memory banks; with bony electronic 
fingers it began to turn over every page in the super-colossal library of 
its mind.

If there had been anything on the public record associating the Paddington 
Survivors' Group with the Tory party, then Excalibur would have found it. 
Bleep bleep bleep the mighty machine would have gone. I - HAVE - FOUND - 
IT, Excalibur would have croaked to its Labour controllers; and the 
necessary information would have been spat out. It would have been used by 
Byers to smear Pam Warren and her fellow survivors. Be in no doubt about 
that. "Oh, by the way," the spin doctors would have told journalists, 
confidentially, off the record, "I thought you ought to know that these 
Paddington rail victims are really just a bunch of Tory stooges."

Obliging elements of the media would have written as much, the legitimate 
grievances of a badly injured woman would have been trivialised, and - who 
knows? - Byers might have continued his astonishing limpet act for another 
month. As it was, the Excalibur search failed. For all their efforts, 
Labour couldn't find anything with which to smear Pam Warren, or her 
successors, and it should apologise to her for even trying to do so. All I 
ask you to imagine, if you want your flesh to crawl, is that the 
information on Excalibur were not just confined to that which is already in 
the public domain.

Anyone who loves liberty, and who wants to be protected from a nosy and 
unscrupulous government, should be aware of the coming Regulation of 
Investigatory Powers Act. Seldom has a Bill been so grotesquely misnamed. 
This will not regulate or control investigatory powers. It will oversee and 
encourage an explosion in snooping, by official bodies, into our lives, our 
associations, our interests, our every move. Investigatory powers are to be 
given to virtually every public body and quango, from the police to the 
local dog-catcher.

The Government originally said the Bill would be aimed at increasing the 
power s of only the police, Customs, the intelligence services and the 
Inland Revenue. That in itself is excessive. But under measures that have 
still to be debated by MPs, seven Whitehall departments, every local 
authority, health bodies, and 11 other bodies are included. It is a quite 
stupefying extension of state power over the individual. Let us imagine 
that Labour really wanted to do in poor Pam Warren, or you and me. Let us 
suppose that we were saying or doing things that they didn't much like, 
causing them embarrassment, making life difficult for Byers - that kind of 
thing.

All they would need to find would be a convenient Labour-sympathising 
person on one of these bodies, and he or she could snap his fingers and 
conjure up a fantastic quantity of personal information about us. In order 
to have access to details of all our personal phone calls and e-mails, it 
would be enough to show that it was necessary for protecting public health, 
or public safety, or mitigating any damage to anyone's health.

In fact, the Bill is drafted with such unbelievable woolliness that, for 
the snoopers to avail themselves of this stuff, they could argue, among 
several other possible grounds, that it was to "safeguard the country's 
economic well-being". What if it was arbitrarily decided, by some 
Labour-supporting council official, that what you or I were up to was 
against the "economic well-being" of the country?

In that case, without consulting any judges, or securing any warrants, or 
even obtaining the approval of the police, that official could demand - and 
furtively pass on - the following information. They could establish what 
websites you have visited, whom you have called on your mobile phone, who 
has called you, and even the location of those calls.

What if you were a journalist, looking up Islamic websites on the net? Does 
anyone have any right to draw conclusions from that? Suppose you find 
yourself somehow trapped, as I once was, in a website called 
"Boobtropolis", which blurts an embarrassing welcoming song. Does anyone, 
apart from the indulgent readers of this newspaper, have a right to know that?

Suppose you are scanning the net for information about a disease from which 
you suffer, or about the possibility of terminating a pregnancy? Why the 
hell should that be a matter for anyone else? It is not just that the wrong 
officials could get their hands on this stuff. It could fall into the hands 
of the media. The possibilities for blackmail or abuse are limitless.

The measures are justified, as ever, in the name of the fight against 
crime. Serious criminals will soon learn to avoid detection, perhaps by 
leaving their mobiles running in other places, or by rediscovering the art 
of letter-writing. This is an attempt to scarify the public, by letting 
them know that they are being watched not only by Big Brother, but also by 
all his nosy little relatives.

There is nothing between you and this Bill but one 90-minute debate next 
week. Then it will be law. You have been warned.
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MAP posted-by: Beth