Business of the House: Government Information (Unauthorised Release) (4 Dec 2008)
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab):: A little while ago I had a hand in getting the Prime Minister to reaffirm the Wilson doctrine, and he extended it to modern electronic surveillance. On the face of it, it would appear that the Wilson doctrine has been abrogated by the police in this case. Clearly, the e-mails of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) were looked at. I venture to suggest that he was listened in to, and...
4 Dec 2008 : Column 143
Jacqui Smith: I am sorry my hon. Friend has not received the reply to the letter, which I sent him yesterday and in which I made it clear that the Wilson doctrine as outlined by the Prime Minister has not been abrogated.
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Mr. Parmjit Dhanda (Gloucester) (Lab) The Home Secretary has been clear and unambiguous today. Will she go further on the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) about the Wilson doctrine? Can she reassure all hon. Members that our home numbers, work mobiles and the phones that we use in this House are covered by the Wilson doctrine, as well as our e-mail accounts?
Jacqui Smith: As I have suggested, the Wilson doctrine applies, and it applies as outlined by the Prime Minister.
4 Dec 2008 : Column 151
Remember that the Wilson Doctrine is interpreted very narrowly by this Labour Government - the "seizure of evidence" by the Police, when they grab someone's computer is not "interception of emails" in transit, although the end result in terms of betraying confidential information can be the same.
Since the whistleblower leak inquiry covers the last couple of years or so, what exactly were the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command granted access to, with respect to the Parliamentary email system ?
- Were the Police granted access to all of the emails sent and received via Damian Green's Parliamentary email account ?
- Were these emails restricted to only the ones sent to or from the Home Office whistleblower Christopher Galley (if , indeed, any such emails actually exist at all) , or were other emails from or to constituents, or correspondents of Damian Green, also scooped up in the data trawl ?
- Were the Police granted access to the entire Microsoft Exchange server or shared folders containing correspondence from more than one MP and their constituents ?
- Were they granted access to archives or backups, going back 2 or more years ?
There are separate questions about any content of any such emails i.e. Interception (which is supposedly covered by the Wilson Doctrine) and any email server logfiles which potentially betray the identities of other whistleblowers or other confidential journalistic contacts i.e. Communications Traffic Data. The latter is not covered by the Wilson Doctrine, but it should be.
It appears that Damian Green's Parliamentary email account was suspended on the Thursday of his arrest.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin appeared to be clueless and not in command of any facts about exactly what privacy, confidentiality and privilege breaches there had, or had not been, regarding the Parliamentary email system.
4 Dec 2008 : Column 152Richard Benyon (Whip, Newbury, Conservative)
Further to the point made by Andrew Mackinlay concerning our e-mails and the House of Commons server, Mr. Speaker. Can you confirm that the House of Commons server is covered by the Wilson doctrine, and that it cannot be accessed by the police or any other authorities to access our e-mails in order to investigate circumstances that we lawfully as Back Benchers and Members of this House have taken up on behalf of our constituents and others?
Michael Martin (Speaker)
As the Chairman of the House of Commons Commission, I have a serious responsibility to look after the computer system that we all use, including myself. I will look into this matter, rather than give an off-the-cuff answer from the Chair.
Speaker Martin had nearly a week to look into this particular matter, what is he hiding ?
Unless the Members of the House of Commons clear up these questions this Monday, not "after the Police inquiry has finished" (this took 18 months in the "cash for honours" inquiry involving the then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and his henchmen), then how can any members of the public trust that their communications with their constituency MPs will not be betrayed in future "leak inquiry" collateral damage and data trawling ?
Surely it is time for Members of Parliament to use strong encryption to protect their privileged constituency correspondence from snooping by the Government and others ?
I had been wondering about this one - whether there was any significance to Smith's choice of words, esp. "as outlined by the PM".
First reaction was to think that there was weasel in them thar words though it's hard to tell because by the time it got to the second of those two answers she was clearly getting a bit (more) tetchy...
Another thing that's heavily annoying about this is the way that Harman and Smith appear to be trying to write some kind of new parliamentary constitution by constantly repeating their 'list of principles' (thinking 'weasel' again) which they clearly want formalised with their names on the front.
This must not be allowed to happen! If it does, then the bit that has their names should include the phrases 'Smith ignorance' and 'Harman cover-up'.
On the strong-encryption point, surely the services would RIPA-demand the key on the grounds that they needed to inspect all of it 'to confirm the innocence' of the MP in question...
@ Doctor_Wibble - RIPA section 49 notices for Cryptographic Keys or de-crypted plaintext, leave an audit trail, which will, not, of course be a problem for a targeted investigation into a Serious Crime, but will probably discourage data trawling and fishing expeditions.
If the Metropolitan Police are now in possession of a disk images of Damian Green's computers, they can trawl through all his other constituents correspondence, most of which will have nothing to do with the whistleblower affair, but which may very well be complaining about the Police or Government etc., supposedly in confidence. Such snooping will not leave any sort of audit trail.
Were they given access to copy the entire Parliamentary Microsoft Exchange email system, affecting all MPs and Lords and Parliamentary staff and their correspondents ?
Theresa May (Conservative) has asked the (Labour) Leader of the House Harriet Harman, for an assurance that the Police did not seize or have access to the constituency correspondence emails and computer network shared document drives belonging to other MPs and their constituents.
Harriet Harman singularly failed to give any such assurance, either because she does not Know (incompetence ?) or she is hiding a further scandal.
In case not picked up yet...
The Speaker's statement today (which typically I missed by mere seconds) on access to the shared server:
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Mr. Speaker: I undertook to look into the matter of the Wilson doctrine and access to the House of Commons server, which was raised by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) on 4 December. The Parliamentary Information and Communications Technology service takes the security of its systems very seriously, and is grateful for the support that the Joint Committee on Security, the Administration Committee and the Commission give in that respect. PICT would not allow any third party to access the parliamentary network without proper authority. In the Commons, such access previously required the approval of the Serjeant at Arms. Following my statement on 3 December, if PICT receives any requests to allow access in future, it will also seek confirmation that a warrant exists and that I have approved such access under the procedure laid down and the protocol issued yesterday.
With regard to the incident involving the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), no access was given to data held on the server, as PICT was not instructed to do so by the Serjeant at Arms. No access will be given unless a warrant exists and I approve such access.
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The Speaker's Statement is at
9 Dec 2008 : Column 407
There was a further Point of Order a couple of paragrahs later:
That still does not clarify exactly what happened, does it ?
Was the Serjeant at Arms asked for permission to access the Parliamentary computer systems and then refused ?
Or was she simply not asked by the Police at all ?
What about Communications Traffic Data requests ? Did the Police make a Data Protection Act section 29 request to the PICT team for the email server or other log files relating to Damian Green and / or anybody else ?
Are Communications Traffic Data requests mentioned at all in the old or new protocols published by the Speaker ?
Tracking down the identity of a suspected whistleblower does not necessarily require access to the contents of email or phone conversations, just who called who and when and where, might be enough to betray their identity to investigators.