Hard-hitting IT commentator Dr Simon Moores gives his personal take
on the hot issues of the day."Why," asked Jeremy Paxman, "should we
be bothered by this RIP Act? After all, unless you've something to
hide, you're not going to be worried by the prospect of Government
reading your e-mail."
It was a Wednesday night on
Newsnight and the BBC had
invited me to take part in the programme's lead story, The
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
All of a sudden - and prompted by
The Guardian's front-page
revelation - the media had woken up to the news that the infamous
RIPA was to be extended, perhaps even to traffic wardens, a
tongue-in-cheek comment that
Newsnight picked up.
Paxman needed some convincing. At first, he didn't perceive the
legislation as a gross invasion of privacy and violation of our
civil rights.
My own role that evening, other than offering him a brief, was to
take part in a three-way discussion with a Home Office minister but
time and the minister's reluctance to participate in such a very
public and live debate, left me as a spectator from the sideline
and the politician exposed to Paxman's tender mercies.
Under pressure from the inimitable Jeremy, the minister was made to
look like a Stalinist goon with two left feet who just couldn't
avoid kicking the ball into the back of the Home Office net every
couple of minutes. I'm sure the home secretary will think twice
before sending one of his deputies to defend the indefensible in
future.
If the cynical Paxman could be persuaded that RIPA is an
unbelievably stupid piece of legislation, then there's always hope
that someone nearer the top of the political tree might wonder why
on earth we've got this far in the "Mother of Parliaments".
As one expert on the legislation suggested to me, "RIPA is an
example of a 'catch-all' piece of legislation. The Government is
attempting to rush through an Act that sweeps up any conceivable
evolution in communications technology. They tried this with CCTV
to reduce crime and it failed miserably, and they'll do the same
thing with the Internet, which will fail equally miserably."
If Government is going to obsess about the Internet, there are
other equally pressing areas which, I believe, should be attracting
more attention.
The other day, while reading a story on terrorism, I followed a
link to a page on how the FBI had forced one popular US Web site to
remove a video of the murder of
Wall Street Journal reporter
Daniel Pearl.
The hyperlink sent me to a site that broadcasts the darkest and
most disgusting images of human misery and depravity. Foolishly, my
own curiosity encouraged me to open the MPEG file of an
"execution", and I watched the decapitation of a young Russian
soldier by a Chechen guerilla with a kitchen knife.
It's an image of bloody horror that will haunt me and yet it's one
that your child or mine can just as easily find and share in
seconds.
Where should our priorities be, I wonder? Snooping on every
citizen's e-mail or wondering whether the "right" to exploit the
Internet as a medium for free speech and free expression has gone
too far?
Time to clean up the Internet? >>CW360.com
reserves the right to edit and publish answers on the Web site.
Please state if your answer is not for publication.
Zentelligence: Setting the world to rights with the collected
thoughts and ramblings of the futurist writer, broadcaster and
Computer Weekly columnist Simon Moores.
Ё