On the Today programme, Nick Clegg compared the “dragnet” approach of Theresa May’s Investigatory Powers Bill to the way things happen in Russia.
During the Coalition years, Nick had stopped the Conservatives from introducing a “snooper’s charter.” It’s worth remembering that he was going to let it through until a conference call with some angry bloggers who understood the technology, and the intervention of people like Julian Huppert, made him think twice. But once he’s changed his mind, he was good to his word and held May off for 3 years.
The Guardian quotes him as saying this morning:
He said: “Why there is this great congregation of concern from all wings of political opinion is because what the home office is in essence proposing is that in order to be able to surveil and analyse something they are saying they want to collect everything on everyone. That is a dragnet approach which I have always felt is disproportionate.”
He dismissed the analogy of the needle in the haystack – the argument that the security agencies need to embark on the bulk collection of data in order to be able to find crucial nuggets of details about terrorists.
He told Today: “I know the needle-haystack argument and it is a comforting analogy. But the reality is a little different. Why, for instance, is there no other European or Commonwealth country that I know that pursues this dragnet approach?
“The Americans and the Canadians, according to the independent reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation David Anderson, told him there are constitutional constraints on them pursuing this dragnet approach. The Australians have a prohibition on it. The Danes interestingly had a very similar power for some years and then scrapped it a couple of years ago because they discovered, unsurprisingly, that the police were drowning in huge amounts of useless information.
“The Home Office in Britain, almost uniquely in the developed world, has been peddling this idea for about eight years now that you need to create a vast bucket of information about everybody’s interaction on the internet every second of the day.
“So the question is about proportionality. Is it proportionate in a small ‘l’ liberal, small ‘d’ democracy to retain information on everything – from the music you download on Spotify, to the app you opened, to the supermarket website that you visit – in order to go after the bad guys? Very few other countries other than Russia take this dragnet approach.”
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10 Comments
The needle in the haystack has the alternative view, if there is only one needle why make the haystack larger?
Doesn’t Nick Clegg realise he has no credibility on this after he twice deliberately ignored the party and voted for Secret Courts while in coalition? Instead a little more humility and owning up to the mess he made of Liberal Democracy over the last five years would be welcome.
Likewise holding off Theresa May for three years is no use at all when you have sacrificed 90% of your MPs on a failed attempt to prove he could do “grown up government.”
It’s also a shame he supported the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill in 2014 that was rushed through as an emergency bill with minimal scrutiny after the ECJ ruled that the UK Government should stop making internet companies retain records for 12 months……
And that’s my first ever anti-Nick Clegg post. Do I get a gold star now or something?
That’s fine Nick. My view is quite simple. We did some good, and indeed some very good things in government, but we got sucked into doing supporting the Tories doing too many bad things (bedroom tax, benefit cuts for the under 25s etc.), did quite a few illiberal things (Secret courts and DRIP), were fooled into supporting some downright stupid things (Tuition Fees and NHS Reform), and all in an attempt to prove we could in Nick Clegg’s words “do grown up government.”
Unfortunately Nick (nor his closest advisors) didn’t understand just how devious and conniving the Conservatives could be. How they could get him to give and give big at the start, while they could refuse to give later (AV and HoL reform). So we kicked our supporters in the groin early (Tuition Fees and NHS Reform), while they kicked things that affected their supporters into the long grass (Banking Reform) or even just refused to stick to the agreement (AV to an extent and HoL reform in extremis).
Hence towards the end we were left with next to nothing to show for what we had delivered (e.g. Conservative’s claiming credit for tax cuts or look at Norman Baker’s resignation letter), and the Conservatives could finish off with a pre-election bribe to the over 65s (Remember 4% Pensioner Bonds).
All in all Nick didn’t have a clue how to get our positive message over, how to manage the Conservatives to deliver their part of the coalition agreement, nor sadly the importance (to our voters) of telling the truth. These were mistakes of management and character, the two things you vote for a leader because you believe he/she has them, but you only find out for sure when it is too late.
All in all a man with superb ability to deliver a great speech about Liberal Democracy that tugs the heart strings, but sadly clueless when it came to delivering it in the red hot fire of coalition.
Nick Baird – no gold star but definitely the “beard and sandals” award for services to Liberalism!!
I think many fail to understand the needle in the haystack analogy in the context of the draft Investigatory Powers Bill and what our security services do.
Fundamentally, our security services aren’t that interested in finding needles! This is because as people have noted it involves a lot of largely unproductive work. What is better is to monitor the haystack so that if a needle is found you can go back and (hopefully) see who it was, who placed it in the haystack, whether they may have placed other needles and who their accomplices might be etc..
The purpose of the draft IPB isn’t to create a haystack of data that our security agencies can trawl through at their leisure -they don’t have the resources, but some breadcrumb records about communications that will facilitate an informed search. Hence why one of key provision’s (and funding issue) with the IPB is the requirements being placed on third-parties to retain records; to which the security services can request access, but only to specified records.
Obviously, there is need is to ensure that the intent and associated safeguards contained in the draft are not undermined through poor wording or revision as the IPB makes it’s way through its various readings.
@Roland – I think you are right in the context of manpower, but surely in the future (if not already) won’t the haystack searching be done by computer?
Also, everyone keeps talking about the police and security services. Communications data will be available to broad swathes of government (like the Food Standards Agency, the Gambling Commission, the Ambulance Service etc) including local government if a Justice of the Peace approves the application.
These powers are not just about terrorism, and are perfect for tracking down whistleblowers (as the police has already proven using their current powers).
@Nick – I fully agree with your concerns, however, the problems the draft IPB is trying to address are not going to go away, hence given the general intent of the draft IPB is vastly different to previous attempts at “snoopers charters” I think we need to engage and work as Paul Strasburger has and is doing and make the IPB more watertight and protective of individuals.
As for your concern about “in the future (if not already) won’t the haystack searching be done by computer?” It depends upon which haystack we are talking about. My concern, given the current issues around CSP’s who will pay for the storage of records and their security, that an important consideration is missed. The perception currently is that each CSP will physically hold their (small haystack) records locally to them and the various agencies wanting access have to go to them. However, looking purely at the technical problem, it is obvious for ALL these records to be held within the Gcloud (ie. remote storage that is securely separated from the public internet) and for each CSP to simply upload records through a highly secure Gcloud gateway. This however presents us with the same problem as we are seeing with the ANPR database, where data is both being collated in a way not originally envisaged and held for longer than envisaged. Additionally, a database (or databases/haystacks) within the Gcloud is much more accessible than ones distributed outside of it.
I therefore think we need to engage and fully understand what the draft IPB may both enable and prevent, if we are to get a satisfactory outcome.