Sat, 07 Apr 2007
Sir Swinton Thomas, the
Interception of Communications Commissioner, authored the
Report
of the Interception of Communications Commissioner for 2005-2006
in February 2007:
[...]
vi. The Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are very important in
this
process and their staff do essential work. They are very co-operative
and dedicated. I talk to them regularly and they are totally opposed to
the concept of intercept being admissible in Court. The present regime
provides a high degree of protection to the CSPs and particularly to
those members of their staff who work in this sensitive field, and
their strong co-operation referred to could easily be undermined. Here
again, I think that it is essential for people holding views on this
subject to talk to the CSPs, and to listen to what they say, and
understand the basis of their strong opposition to any change in the
present law.
[...]
From the minutes of evidence taken before the joint committee on human
rights on
2007-03-12
(uncorrected transcript of oral evidence to be published as HC 394-i)
Q21 Nia Griffith: You
mention in your annual report that communication service providers are
strongly opposed to intercept being admissible in court. Can you tell
us why that is and should their agreement be a precondition to relaxing
the ban?
Sir Swinton Thomas: I visited all the major telephone companies and
internet companies at least once a year and more often with some of
them, as was necessary. There are two aspects. The companies themselves
who are extremely co-operative in providing the material which is
needed for the intercept are very concerned about their capacity and
the way in which they go about dealing with these issues being made
public. There is probably a commercial aspect to that which is
difficult for me to deal with in public. I dare say that if you have a
chairman of a company dealing in communications, he would say, "Quite frankly, we would prefer
that our customers did not know that we were passing all your calls
across to a government agency" [my emphasis], which is a
fairly natural response. A more important one is that they think - and
I think they are right - that if there was a change in the law all the
ways in which they go about providing material would be open to
examination and cross-examination, which is something they do not want
to happen. Members of the general public probably know very little
about it. [...]
Is the main issue regarding use of intercepts in court really that it's
not good for business if we, the public, know that our calls are passed
to NTAC, GCHQ or a similar agency?