Britain debates whether security agencies need increased surveillance powers
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — The Paris attacks have sparked a heated debate in Britain over the need for broader surveillance authority by security agencies to intercept messages from potential terrorists, including a possible ban on messaging applications like Apple’s iMessage or WhatsApp. Hours after meeting with security chiefs on Monday to discuss Britain’s response to the atrocities in France, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that if his party is victorious in the general election in May, he will push to introduce “comprehensive” legislation — called a “snooper’s charter” by critics — to give intelligence agencies more powers to track Internet and cellphone data. “If I’m prime minister, I will make sure it is a comprehensive piece of legislation that makes sure that we do not allow terrorists safe space to communicate with each other,” Cameron said Monday, while giving a speech in Nottingham. Cameron indicated that any new legislation proposed by his Conservative party would oppose platforms that permit encrypted communication that couldn’t be accessed even with a warrant. “In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which even in extremis, with a signed warrant from the home secretary personally, that we cannot read?” he said. Privacy advocates said that Cameron was effectively calling for the ban of communication platforms that use advanced encryption, which would include Apple’s iMessage or WhatsApp. “What he’s asking for is one of the most secure ways we communicate to be outlawed,” said Mike Rispoli, a spokesman for Privacy International. But he said that any such measures could prove difficult to implement given their far-reaching implications: “If the U.K. plans to ban encryption altogether, they will not only be banning social media sites and communication tools, but the legions of online services and functions that rely on encryption — from online banking to hotel bookings,” he said. Cameron’s pledge to increase the state’s powers comes just days after Andrew Parker, the head of Britain’s domestic spy agency said in a rare speech: “My sharpest concern as director general of MI5 is the growing gap between the increasingly challenging threat and the decreasing availability of capabilities to address it.” But the ramping up of electronic surveillance powers remains a contentious issue among British politicians, with a general election only four months away. On Tuesday, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, highlighted concerns over the curbing of civil liberties, and Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labor Party, has said his response to the calls for increased powers would be “cautious and considered.” “The snooper’s charter is not the answer,” Clegg told the BBC. “Scooping up vast amounts of information on millions of people — children, grandmothers, grandparents and elderly people who do nothing more offensive than visiting gardening-center Web sites” — is a waste of resources and a disproportionate response, he said. The Liberal Democrats, the junior partners in Britain’s coalition government, previously blocked a proposed data communications bill in 2013. The bill would have forced Internet service providers to store for a year records of Britons’ Web and social media activity. |