The report into the death of Lee Rigby makes it clear that the British security services wants to force companies like Google, Facebook and Whatsapp to co-operate with investigations, but lack the legal tools to enforce requests. David Cameron made it clear in the House of Commons that he is willing to consider new laws that will compel internet companies to disclose communications from potential terrorists.
Under existing legislation, British companies are obliged to provide the
intelligence and law enforcement agencies with access to communications, if
agencies suspect an individual is involved in terrorism.
However, this does not extend to US companies. The Rigby report goes into
unusual detail about the problems facing intelligence services as they trawl
for information, highlighting the legal restrictions faced by MI5 and GCHQ
as they try to disrupt terrorism.
American companies have made it clear they would hand over information “in an
emergency situation” involving risk of death or serious physical injury, but
they will not cooperate with a fishing exercise. Complying with Regulation
of Investigatory Powers Act – the main piece of legislation used to access
communications in the UK – would actually leave American companies in breach
of US laws.
The Rigby report is likely to reignite the row over the so-called “snooper’s
charter”.
In the aftermath of Drummer Rigby’s death, Conservative MPs attacked Nick
Clegg for scuppering the Communications Data Bill, which was dropped from
last year’s Queen’s speech at his insistence. Mr Clegg hailed the collapse
of the bill as a victory for civil liberties.
After the Woolwich attack, the Liberal Democrats refused to change their
position. Julian Huppert, the Lib Dem MP for Cambridge and a leading
opponent of the bill, insisted that the arguments were “unaffected by these
tragic events".
“This [the Woolwich murder] wouldn’t have been prevented by finding out what
people do when they are on Facebook,” he said.
The report makes it clear that one of the murderers had, in fact, been
discussing his plans on Facebook.
The timing of the Rigby report has created a “sympathetic environment” for a
tough new crack down on extremism, according to Intelligence and Security
committee sources.
One member said that the diaries of the committee’s members had been cleared
for the publication of the report two weeks ago.
However it was then delayed by the Government to this week, on the eve of the
publication on Wednesday of a new Counter Terrorism and Security Bill.
One source said: “The whole thing has created a sympathetic environment for
the introduction of legislation.”
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, confirmed that
he was concerned about the timing of the report so near to the publication
of the new legislation.
The Prime Minister had access to various drafts of the report as well as the
unredacted draft of the final version. Mr Cameron made it clear that he
wants internet companies to monitor for potential terror threats,
highlighting past problems with child pornography.
"Some people say, 'You cannot change this and nothing can be done.' I do not
accept that," said Mr Cameorn. "In the case of child pornography, to start
with, when we made suggestions about, for example, not returning search
items on disgusting child pornography terms, we were told that that was
impossible. Now the internet companies have put that in place."
The Telegraph, UK
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