Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | yesterday
Interception of Communications Commissioner Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner for 2007 (.pdf 16 pages) by the Rt. Hon. Sir Paul Kennedy, submitted to the Prime Minister on 27th June 2008, published on 22nd July 2008. See our reasonably...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | yesterday
Intelligence Services Commissioner Report of the Intelligence Services Commissioner for 2007 (.pdf 9 pages) by Rt. Hon. Sir Peter Gibson, submitted to the Prime Minister on 27th June 2008, published on 22nd July 2008. This is always the least informative...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | yesterday
The only positive thing that can be said about the publication of the Annual Reports of the the 3 RIPA Commissioners, is, that for the very first time, they have all been published at the same time. Thee Regulation of...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 22/07/2008
There is little doubt that the Government is trying to avoid detailed scrutiny of its policies and mistakes by the mainstream media and by bloggers. They have published 30 Ministerial Statements, on the last day before Parliament breaks up for...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 22/07/2008
Another Wilson Doctrine Parliamentary Question and an evasive Answer:by the Ministry of Justice: 21 July 2008 : Column 910W Prisons: Electronic Surveillance Andrew Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 9 June 2008,...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 21/07/2008
The Sunday Times reports another peculiar "Chinese spying" story. From The Sunday Times July 20, 2008 Gordon Brown aide a victim of honeytrap operation by Chinese agents David Leppard and Claire Newell A top aide to Gordon Brown has been...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 18/07/2008
How many hundreds of lost or stolen laptop computers or USB memory sticks etc. will it take before anyone is prosecuted at the Ministry of Defence ? The Government's initial figures about the scale of the data security incompetence at...
Open Secrets (Free subscription) | 18/07/2008
Last year the Information Tribunal heard a freedom of information case between the Guardian and Avon and Somerset Police relating to material about the unsuccessful prosecution of the Liberal politician Jeremy Thorpe in 1979 on a charge of conspiracy to murder. The Tribunal's decision records that the Police gave the Guardian an index to documents held on the case (paragraph 15). I made an FOI request...
Open Secrets (Free subscription) | 17/07/2008
Two readers of this blog have drawn my attention - for different reasons - to the Information Commissioner's Office caseload spreadsheet, published yesterday on whatdotheyknow.com, following an FOI request to the ICO by Alex Skene . One reader points out that, according to his analysis of the spreadsheet, the public authority which is the subject of most appeals to the ICO is in fact the BBC, followed...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 17/07/2008
Yesterday saw some of the worries and concerns about the sneaky Deep Packet Inspection technology from the controversial online advertising snooping company Phorm, which has been been illegally tested out on unsuspecting British Telecom Retail broadband internet users, being raised...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 16/07/2008
We would have liked to have been able to comment on the latest Intelligence and Security Committee's Annual report, which appears to have been leaked, at least in in part to The Guardian newspaper, but it does not yet appear...
Open Secrets (Free subscription) | 16/07/2008
Cherie Blair thought that Downing St officials had compiled a report into her spending on clothes which they were refusing to show her. According to her recent memoirs, this followed a row between her and the Cabinet Secretary Andrew Turnbull over discounts which the cost-conscious Mrs Blair had obtained from various clothing suppliers. A private secretary was then tasked with investigating the matter....
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 15/07/2008
The Information Commissioner has commented on the Home Office's wretched plan to scrap the current system of obtaining Communications Traffic Data from the Communications Service Providers i.e. the telecomms and internet companies, and instead slurping all those log files...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 15/07/2008
Another Parliamentary Question and deliberately evasive and non-transparent non-Answer regarding the Wilson Doctrine: 14 July 2008 : Column 20W Members: Electronic Surveillance Mr. Maude: To ask the Prime Minister whether communications traffic data on telephone calls made (a) by and...
Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk (Free subscription) | 14/07/2008
The electricity power cut, apparently involving an underground cable fire, which is currently affecting the financial district of Vancouver, in Canada, seems to have taken our usual encrypted / digitally signed email service Hushmail offline. See their local co-hosting /...
