FC: U.K. may order firms to record Net-traffic, ban anon remaiers?

[Declan McCullagh]

It's a little unclear from Statewatch's website what the status of this 
bill is, but I gather it's been introduced in Parliament as recently as 
this week. You can find the text here:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2001/nov/08terrorbill.htm

Here's the section on data retention:
>The Secretary of State shall issue, and may from time to time revise, a 
>code of practice relating to the retention by communications providers of 
>communications data obtained by or held by them... It shall be the duty of 
>a communications provider to comply with any direction... the Secretary of 
>State may give such directions as he considers appropriate about the 
>retention of communications data (a) to communications providers 
>generally; (b) to communications providers of a description specified in 
>the direction; or (c) to any particular communications providers or provider.

If I may, permit me to pose a question to the U.K. lawyers on this list: 
Does this give the Secretary of State the power to ban anonymous remailers 
operating inside the U.K.? (Or, more precisely, limit their utility by 
requiring record-keeping, identity escrow.) I'm not saying, of course, that 
the secretary would choose to exercise that authority -- at least not right 
away. The question is whether that authority would exist. Seems to me that 
"communications providers" may be defined broadly enough for that to be the 
case.

See also:

"Europe set to nix Bush request, not require ISP data retention"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-02789.html

-Declan

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