« HMRC try to divert attention towards their secure online tax return web front end system, and away from their back end offices | Main | The stolen MoD recruitment laptop computer held at least 605,757 addresses »

RIPA Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioner Annual Reports for 2006 laid before Parliament - delayed yet again

The missing, illegally delayed RIPA Commissioner's Annual Reports for 2006 have now been published in 2008

28 Jan 2008 : Column 3WS

Prime Minister
Intelligence Services Commissioner/Interception of Communications Commissioner (Annual Report)

The Prime Minister (Mr. Gordon Brown): I have today laid before both Houses the annual reports for 2006 of the Intelligence Services Commissioner, the right hon. Sir Peter Gibson (HC 253), and the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the right hon. Sir Paul Kennedy (HC 252). Some sensitive information has been excluded from both reports in accordance with Sections 58(7) and 60(5) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

I am grateful to the commissioners for their reports and the work that has gone into preparing them.

We will link to the censored online copies once these are available in the next week or so. If you spot them online before us, please publish the URL in the comments below.

UPDATE both reports are now online (thanks to Doctor_Wibble for the pointer in the comments below).

They were both submitted to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown on 24th October 2007, so why could he not lay them before Parliament, as he is required to by law, before the end of the calendar year i.e. before the Christmas holiday ?

Neither report says very much different from the previous ones.

The Interception of Communications Commissioner Rt. Hon. Sir Paul Kennedy agrees with his predecessor Rt. Hon. Sir Swinton Thomas regrading the Wilson Doctrine which exempts just the Members of Parliament and the Peers in the House of Lords from having their phones tapped.

63. I have not in this report referred to the Wilson Doctrine but I adopt without qualification what was said about it by Sir Swinton Thomas last year. In times like these it seems to me to be totally indefensible.

He also now has a Chief Inspector and a team of 5 to help him with the inspections of actual inception warrants, but there still seems to be far less oversight or inspection of the much more numerous (still around a quarter of a million requests a year) for Communications Traffic Data.

Intelligence Services Commissioner Rt. Hon. Sir Peter Gibson's Report, like that of his predecessor, gives virtually no details whatsoever, and just says that everything is running properly, with just a few minor errors, and no evidence of malice or incompetence.

Why did Gordon Brown delay the publication if such bland reports ?

Posted by on January 29, 2008 8:33 AM |

Comments

These reports seem really short. Did I point at the right ones?

Posted by: DW | January 29, 2008 9:16 AM

@ DW - thanks - yes those are the reports, apart from the Confidential Annexes.

Why such short reports cannot be produced and published within a month or two after the end of the calendar year to which they apply is a scandal i.e. we should really have the 2007 reports published by now, not the 2006 ones.

Posted by: wtwu | January 29, 2008 9:58 AM

The Daily Telegraph has stirred up some reader fury with their article:

Phones tapped at the rate of 1,000 a day

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:33am GMT 29/01/2008


Britain is in danger of becoming a "surveillance state" as authorities including councils launch bugging operations against 1,000 people a day

[...]

However, as usual, the mainstream media are a bit confused, or are being inaccurate on purpose.

The quarter of a million or so requests for Communications Traffic Data (admittedly, this is in only 9 months, so it probably is an increase over the the year before) is not the figure of actual telephone taps where the phone call is intercepted and recorded.

Local Councils checking for fly tippers do not have access to that power directly themselves, but can check the phone registration details of say, dodgey skip hire or rubbish removals adverts etc.

There could actually be large numbers of phone calls or emails actually being intercepted, it is just that the figures in the Report are meaningless for warrants and certificates, as these could cover multiple numbers or email addresses or entire countries, etc. - exactly as with all the previous Reports.

Posted by: wtwu | January 29, 2008 2:45 PM

Post a comment