Sorry for the unoriginal choice of title. This is about the fourth Samizdata post with a title related to that slogan, and the umpteenth to mention it. Don’t blame us. If the authorities would stop repeatedly proving that slogan to be a cruel travesty, we would be happy to stop going on about it.
Until that day arrives, the Guardian has a good report on the latest example of what innocent people have to fear:
Police made ‘appalling’ errors in using internet data to target suspects
Police have made serious errors getting search warrants for suspected sex offenders, leading to the targeting of innocent people and children being wrongly separated from their parents, an official report has revealed.
The errors – highlighted by the interception of communications commissioner, Sir Stanley Burnton, in his annual report to the prime minister – had “appalling” consequences and related to some of the most intrusive powers the state can use against its citizens.
In one example, two children were separated from their parents for a weekend while the parents were questioned as suspects in a child sexual exploitation case. It later emerged that police had raided the wrong address due to an error on the documentation and the parents were innocent.
Digital devices belonging to innocent people were also forensically examined by police, Burnton said.
The errors identified were mainly because details were wrongly entered into software that helps police work out the location where a specific IP (internet protocol) address has been used.
But IP addresses are routinely reassigned by internet providers. Burnton warned investigators not to rely on them when trying to work out who is hiding behind the anonymity of the internet to commit crimes.
He wrote: “These [errors] are far more common than is acceptable, especially in cases relating to child sex exploitation. The impact on some victims of these errors has been appalling.”
Of COURSE I have something to hide.On average, 3 times a day!
The legislature has SEEN to it! For example…
If I whip out Mr. Happy, to wizz on a tree, I can claim youth sexual predator status, as an under aged girl COULD HAVE POSSIBLY been passing by AT ANY TIME!
It’s happened in the US.(Not to me. I live in the sticks, where food comes from, now)
Now, let’s chat about public beer drinking, and ordering a bacon/egg sandwich, on toast, over easy!
WOAH! Did you SEE the (attributes of) that woman with the plunging neck tee shirt that just walked by?
Whatever happened to ‘Innocent until proven guilty’? I know that Asset forfeiture laws had started to erode that belief/law/quaint-superstition, but has it all gone? At least, here in Australia, we don’t have asset forfeiture, though we DO tend to follow the US.
Whatever report is given to the Fish Faced Cow she won’t give a rat’s backside.
She never met a piece of tinpot tyranny she didn’t like. And none of it will ever have any effect on her.
You might beat the rap, but you won’t beat the ride. As the example shows.
Plus, what Mr Ecks said. Perhaps you should pass a law barring anybody who has served as Home Secretary from becoming PM. Something seems to happen to them, during their time at the HO.
Everybody has something to hide. And as the good Captain has noted, the legislatures of the world are churning out more reasons to hide things every year. Even a lawyer will worry when approached by a cop – though the lawyer at least has the consolation of approaching cops and watching them worry.
Something to keep in mind:
0.004%.
Granted, this is an area where police power can wreck lives, and every decision made and step taken ought to be accomplished with great care.
But . . . 0.004%.
That’s four errors in one hundred thousand applications. (Do the math; if they’re calling out 29 serious errors in the article, at an error rate of 0.004%, how many applications are we talking about?)
This isn’t the breakdown of policing as we know it. In a system designed to investigate allegations of criminal sexual child abuse – historically another “he said/she said” situation – investigations do get intrusive at times, and, if the investigators are good, sometimes innocent people get caught up in investigations. (I note that the article doesn’t say that anyone was convicted using this erroneous data.)
Yeah, errors suck. I’d like to think that, in my career, I had an error rate as low as 0.004%.
Nicholas:
“Whatever happened to ‘Innocent until proven guilty’?”
That once-upon-a-time fundamental precept of the “British” legal system has been void for DECADES.
We are rapidly nearing the full implementation of the old Napoleonic Code: “IF YOU WERE NOT GUILTY OF SOMETHING, WE WOULD NOT BE ARRESTING YOU. What is your pathetic excuse? SLAM. Watch your fingers”.
Money for jam for the legal fraternity. “We’ll pretend to seek justice and you will pretend to be grateful”.
Add to this the problem of police withholding exculpatory evidence (even when they have obtained it somehow, despite their inevitable confirmation bias), and chances of a false conviction in a case involving technical evidence are significant.
Add to this the Vetting and Barring system, whereby even being suspected of a crime, especially a sex crime, is a permanent civil disability
The errors identified were mainly because details were wrongly entered into software that helps police work out the location where a specific IP (internet protocol) address has been used.
But IP addresses are routinely reassigned by internet providers. Burnton warned investigators not to rely on them when trying to work out who is hiding behind the anonymity of the internet to commit crimes.
This sounds like the software is reliable, just that the operator is not, garbage in garbage out, PEBKAC methinks.
Of course, IP addressing wont help if a criminal is using someone else’s wi-fi or a public network, so the police need to be careful anyway, even if the software correctly identifies the address.
The Panopticon is here.
The sociopaths are overjoyed.
Overload their system.
Make them over-react.
Another reason I am glad that I’ve moved from Virgin Media to sticking an antenna out of the window and using the WiFi from the local library.
Can’t be wrongly looked up on an ISP’s records if you’re not on an ISP’s records.
In addition to imposing “The process is the punishment” (aka “you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride”) the government has managed to work around that pesky “Innocent unless proven guilty” thing via documentation requirements. Instead of simply prohibiting bad behavior, the law imposes a requirement that you produce documentation to show that what you’re doing isn’t prohibited bad behavior.
So here in the US, it’s not enough to be legally allowed to buy a gun – you have to fill out a form, produce ID, and submit to a background check to show that you’re not a prohibited person. It’s not enough that the woman you took a cheesecake photo of is a big-breasted 30-something – you have to keep paperwork on file to show that she’s over 18. It’s not enough to be 21+ if you want to buy booze – you must have ID to show that you’re old enough. It’s not enough to be a natural-born US citizen – you have to produce documents to show that you’re not an illegal immigrant if you want to work. It’s not enough to make wooden toys free of lead paint – you have to jump through hoops and show that your toys are lead-free before you’re allowed to sell them. And so on and so forth, ad nauseum.
As Ellen says, everybody has something to hide. And it’s not necessarily something criminal; it might merely be embarrassing. Also, never forget that something which is perfectly legal today might not be so tomorrow, and governments always “look back” when they choose to do so, notwithstanding any theoretical prohibition on ex post facto laws. And, most dangerous of all, is their proclivity to selectively disclose, and willfully misinterpret, wholly innocent actions.
The right to privacy is essential to a free people. Unfortunately, it’s getting more and more difficult to maintain the fiction that any of us is truly “free” any more.
The ever increasing mission creep of state actors and organisations data trawling and general prodnoseyness is only limited by polite convention and the finances of the state.
As has been stated earlier, Theresa May has never seen a bit of totalitarian state intrusion that she didn’t like.
God help us all if Jeremy Corbyn gets in, it will be like Cuba except with worse weather or maybe a closer comparison would be East Germany without the culture.
The British “justice” system (like the American Federal “justice” system) is a terrible mess.
Be more scared when it starts to look orderly….