Revelations About Massive UK Police Corruption Shows Why We Cannot -- And Must Not -- Trust The Spies

As Mike reported recently, the NSA has presented no credible evidence that its bulk metadata collection is stopping terrorist attacks, or keeping people safe. Instead, the argument in support of the secret activities of the NSA and its friends abroad has become essentially: "Trust us, we really have your best interests at heart." But that raises the question: Can we really do that? New revelations from The Independent newspaper about massive and thorough-going corruption of the UK police and judiciary a decade ago show that we can't: 

On Techdirt.

UK Police Routinely Spy On 9000 'Domestic Terrorists' Very Loosely Defined

In the wake of the news that spies at GCHQ -- the UK equivalent of the NSA -- have been tapping into every fiber optic cable that comes into and goes out of the country, downloading and storing phone calls and Internet traffic for up to 30 days, you might think the British authorities have enough information at their disposal, without needing to turn to other sources. But it seems not, according to the latest revelations in The Guardian: 

On Techdirt.

Dutch Law Would Authorize Police To Hack Into Foreign Computers And Phones: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

When we wrote last year about a Dutch idea to give police there the power to break into computers -- even those located abroad -- we and many others pointed out a number of deep flaws with the plan. Undeterred, the Dutch government seems to be going ahead with the scheme, as Bits of Freedom explains: 

On Techdirt.

Dutch Propose Powers For Police To Break Into Computers, Install Spyware And Destroy Data -- Anywhere In The World

Techdirt readers with long memories may recall a fantasy proposal from Orrin Hatch that would have seen technological means deployed to destroy the computers of those who downloaded unauthorized copies of files. Of course, the idea was so ridiculous it went nowhere. Now, nine years later, a similar idea has turned up, but with a rather better chance of being implemented, since it comes from a national government: 

On Techdirt.

How UK Police Attempted To Misuse Official Databases To Smear Disaster Victims

A recent scandal in the UK concerned the country's worst sporting disaster, when 96 football/soccer fans were crushed to death at a stadium in Hillsborough in 1989. Prime Minister David Cameron issued an official apology to the families of the victims for the fact that the safety measures at the ground were known to be inadequate, and that police and emergency services had tried to deflect the blame for the disaster onto fans. 

On Techdirt.

London Police Want To Crowdsource Guilt-Free Surveillance

One of the earliest proposals for mass surveillance was the Panopticon: 

On Techdirt.

London Police To Extract Data From Suspects' Mobile Phones -- And Keep It Even If No Charges Are Brought

As the mobile phone moves closer to the center of daily life in many parts of the world, combining phone, computer, camera, diary, music player, and much else all in one, it becomes a concentrated store of the digital DNA that defines us -- who we talk to, what we search for, who we meet, what we listen to. However convenient that may be for us as users, it's also extremely dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands.

On Techdirt.

SOCA's Frightening New Approach to Music Piracy

Yesterday I wrote about the unusual aspects of the Serious Organised Crime Agency's take-down of the music site RnBXclusive. As I noted then, there are still lots of questions to be answered here, but another piece of the puzzle has been given to us in the form of the following statement on SOCA's Web site:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Serious Organised Crime Agency Takes Down Music Site

One of the positive outcomes of the debate that has raged around SOPA/PIPA is that more people have looked at the facts, rather than listened to the rhetoric, surrounding piracy. In particular, the copyright industries' hitherto unchallenged claim that piracy is destroying their business is finally being challenged – not least by reports like "The Sky is Rising" that consolidate industry figures to show that things are really looking pretty good across the board. 

On Open Enterprise..

El Pueblo Unido...

Videos are proving to be a key element in ensuring that policing is fair and honest, as recent events in the UK have demonstrated. But there's a subtlety here that I hadn't realised until reading this:

More worrying is the way in which CCTV is being used by the police. Demonstrator Jake Smith was charged with two counts of violent disorder. These charges were later dropped when Smith's solicitor, Matt Foot, viewed the original CCTV footage and discovered that the police video had been edited to show events out of sequence, at one point implying another man was Smith while omitting footage showing Smith being assaulted by a police officer without provocation.

Considering the potential for abuse of power, the control that the police have had over the use of CCTV is frightening. Foot warns, "We should be both curious and suspicious about how the police use CCTV footage in these cases."

Foot's concern extends to how police have dictated the use of their edited material. Solicitors representing the protesters were told to sign an undertaking by the Met that prevented them sharing their police videos with anyone but their client. This stopped defence solicitors working together to establish a wider picture of the protests and their context. This worked hand in hand with the decision to charge all the protesters individually rather than collectively.

The first point is obvious enough: those charged with offences need to be able to see the *full* video footage that includes the parts used by the police. But the second is just as important: in order to obtain a full, rounded picture of what *really* happened - or a good approximation thereto - people must be able to pool video resources. Both of these need to be enshrined as explicit rights if we are to nip in the bud the tendency for the Boys in Blue to get selective in their editing, and for true justice to be done.

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Schneier Nails it on CCTV Folly

Another brilliant essay on security from Bruce Schneier. It's all well-worth reading, but here's the nub:

If universal surveillance were the answer, lots of us would have moved to the former East Germany. If surveillance cameras were the answer, camera-happy London, with something like 500,000 of them at a cost of $700 million, would be the safest city on the planet.

We didn't, and it isn't, because surveillance and surveillance cameras don't make us safer. The money spent on cameras in London, and in cities across America, could be much better spent on actual policing.

When will the politicians face up to the facts on CCTV? (Via Boing Boing.)

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Stop the "Stop and Search" Shame

How can a government minister be so shameless as this?

Policing and Security Minister David Hanson MP said: ”Stop and search under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is an important tool in a package of measures in the ongoing fight against terrorism."

How has it done one single thing to "fight against terrorism"? How many "terrorists" have they caught as a result of using "stop and search"? Zero, I'll be bound. All it seems to be used for is to oppress opponents of the government. Words fail me.

Thanks for Keeping us in the Picture

Although e-petitions don't often accomplish much (the apology for Alan Turing being a notable exception), they do have the virtue of forcing the UK government to say something. In response to this:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to remove new restrictions on photography in public places.”

we got this:

It is a statutory defence for a person to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for eliciting, publishing or communicating the relevant information. Legitimate journalistic activity (such as covering a demonstration for a newspaper) is likely to constitute such an excuse. Similarly, an innocent tourist or other sight-seer taking a photograph of a police officer is likely to have a reasonable excuse.

Since most people can't *prove* they had reasonable excuse for taking a photo - is "because it was a nice shot" *reasonable*? And how do you *prove* it was reasonable at the time? - this very high legal bar obviously implies that non-journalistic Brits had better not take any snaps of Plod because, otherwise, you're nicked.

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Wot Police State?

Papers acquired by the Liberal Democrats via Freedom of Information requests show that the 1,500 officers policing the Kingsnorth climate camp near the Medway estuary in Kent, suffered only 12 reportable injuries during the protest during August.

The Home Office has now admitted that the protesters had not been responsible for any injuries. In a three-line written answer to a parliamentary question, the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker wrote to the Lib Dem justice spokesman, David Howarth, saying: "Kent police have informed the Home Office that there were no recorded injuries sustained as a result of direct contact with the protesters."

Only four of the 12 reportable injuries involved any contact with protesters at all and all were at the lowest level of seriousness with no further action taken.

The other injuries reported included "stung on finger by possible wasp"; "officer injured sitting in car"; and "officer succumbed to sun and heat". One officer cut his arm on a fence when climbing over it, another cut his finger while mending a car, and one "used leg to open door and next day had pain in lower back".

Keep up the good work, Jacqui.

More on Labour's Data Delusion

And so it goes on:

Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners - handheld devices that allow police to carry out identity checks on people in the street.

The new technology, which ultimately may be able to receive pictures of suspects, is likely to be in widespread use within 18 months. Tens of thousands of sets - as compact as BlackBerry smartphones - are expected to be distributed.

The police claim the scheme, called Project Midas, will transform the speed of criminal investigations. A similar, heavier machine has been tested during limited trials with motorway patrols.

To address fears about mass surveillance and random searches, the police insist fingerprints taken by the scanners will not be stored or added to databases.

Yeah, pull the other one. The point is, given the current government's mentality that more is better, it is inevitable that these prints will be added. The irony is, this will actually make the system *less* useful.

To see why, consider what happens if there is a 1 in 100,000,000 chance of false positives using these new units. Suppose there are 1,000,000 fingerprints on the database: that means after 100 checks, there is likely to be a false match - bad enough. But now consider what happens when all these other fingerprints, obtained at random, are added, and the database increases to 10,000,000: a false positive will be obtained after every *10* checks on average. In other words, the more prints there are on the database, the worse the false positive rate becomes because of the unavoidable errors in biometrics.

This back of the envelope calculation also shows the way forward for biometric checks - of all kinds, since they are all subject to the same scaling problem. The government should aim to *reduce* the number of files it holds, but ensure that they are the ones that they are most interested in/concerned about. In other words, try to cut the database down to 100,000, say, but make sure they are *right* 100,000, not just random members of the public.

It's clear that the reason for Labour's data delusion is that it doesn't understood the technology that it is seeking to apply. In particular, it doesn't understand that the error rate sets a limit on the useful size of such databases. Super-duper databases are simply super stupid.

Why DNA Databases Are Doomed

I've been against DNA databases for years, but I've always felt that the generic arguments I've been using were a little pallid, shall we say. And now, in what amounts to almost a throwaway comment, the wonderful Reg gives me what I've been looking for:

Although police are keen to bang the drum for cases where DNA evidence has proved vital, there are obvious privacy objections as well as fears that over-reliance on DNA evidence will lead criminals to use it as an alibi - infecting a crime scene with someone else's DNA.

At the moment, there's not much point doing that because DNA isn't regarded as as an indispensable, infallible tool. Put everyone's DNA in a database, and the police are bound to get lazy - that's human nature - using it as a quick and foolproof method for finding perpetrators.

At that point, it will be worth seeding crime scenes with some judiciously-chosen DNA - secure in the knowledge that the rozzers will be able to work out whose it is. At this point, DNA begins to lose its value, as everyone starts sprinkling the stuff everywhere, utterly confusing the DNA bloodhounds.

And so, inevitably, we will be left with a huge DNA database, useless for its original purpose, built at enormous cost, posing an even huger security risk. Great. Not.

The Policeman's Lot is Not a Happy One

You can't make this stuff up:

UK music licensing outfit the “Performing Right Society” (PRS) - the guys that come asking for money when you play any music within earshot of the public - is rolling out the big guns ready for a High Court showdown with a little known group of music pirates, known in the UK as ‘the police’. Not the band of the same name, but that government organization people rely on for keeping law and order.

According to a report, the police in the county of Lancashire have apparently committed a terrible crime and let the whole country down. Rather like the copyright infringing tea-rooms and their carol-singing occupants we wrote about last year, it appears that the police have been recklessly listening to music in stations all over the county - without a license. The PRS aren’t happy.

DNA = Don't Need it All

A group of eminent lawyers and scientists is calling for anyone not convicted of a crime to have their details wiped from the DNA database.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics said it is "unjustified" to keep people on the National DNA Database when they have not been convicted of any offence.

Some four million DNA samples are on the police's database.

Good to see some sensible thinking in this area; pity the government won't take a blind bit of notice.

Crowdsourcing Sousveillance

I wrote recently about Microsoft's amazing Photosynth demo, which shows pictures of Notre-Dame taken from Flickr stitched together automatically to produce a three-dimensional model that you can zoom into in just about any way.

Then I read this:

Madeleine McCann's parents will appeal to Irish tourists to check holiday snaps for clues - while the flat their child was abducted from reportedly sold for half price.

Madeleine's parents Kate McCann, 38, and Gerry, 39, will appear on television to ask anyone who took a trip to Portugal in early May to send photos to British investigators.

It occurred to me that what we really need is a system that can take these holiday snaps and put them together in time to create a four-dimensional model that can be explored by the police - a new kind of crowdsourced sousveillance.

Given that Photosynth is still experimental, we're probably some way off this. I'd also have concerns about handing over all this information to the authorities without better controls on what would be done with it (look what's happening with the UK's DNA database.)

Mumbai Police Outlaw Non-Microsoft Products

Microsoft getting help from the Mumbai constabulary? Seems a little extreme....

The Mumbai Police has come up with regulations for Cyber Cafes. Clause 14 of this regulation requires Cyber Cafes to have "Microsoft Open License Agreement."