HOW THE NEW E-COMMERCE BILL COULD SEND JACK STRAW TO JAIL
At the bottom of this email you will find the text of a letter
sent to Home Secretary Jack Straw MP by Malcolm Hutty, a
volunteer from the e-campaign group STAND.org.uk
It's no ordinary letter.
Indeed, should the Government's E-Commerce Bill reach the
statute book unamended, the mere receipt of a similar
missive could see the Home Secretary liable to a sentence
of two years in jail.
How? Why?
The letter explains all, as does the STAND.org.uk Website at
http://www.stand.org.uk
>> >> ABOUT STAND.org.uk
Created by around 20 volunteers from the UK new media
industry, the STAND.org.uk e-campaign (http://www.stand.org.uk)
aims to focus MPs' attention on widespread public discontent
over the Government's proposed legislation controlling
electronic commerce.
To date over 5,400 UK Net users have promised to educate and
inform their MP about encryption and digital signatures, many by
publishing their "@doption" certificates on their personal
Websites. All but a handful of MPs have now been "@dopted" by
one or more concerned constituents.
STAND's innovative e-campaign has received numerous awards and
commendations, including the 1999 New Statesman New Media
Advocacy Award and New Media Age magazine's Special Award
For Innovation.
>> >> CONTACT DETAILS FOR STAND.ORG.UK
Stefan Magdalinski / Tom Loosemore
Tel: 07931 376 142
Fax: 0171 681 2057
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>> TEXT OF LETTER SENT TO JACK STRAW BY MR MALCOLM HUTTY
Dear Mr Straw,
How the E-commerce Bill could send YOU to jail
Please find at the end of the letter a confession to a
crime, which has been affirmed by Statutory Declaration.
The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has been
informed that you are in possession of this information.
You will not be able to understand the confession, because
the words have been scrambled using a strong cryptographic key.
This key was created in your name and has been registered
on international public key servers.
The police may come and demand that you supply the key required
to make this message intelligible. If you fail to do so you
would be committing an offence under the E-Commerce Bill
rendering you liable to imprisonment for up to 2 years.
The fact that you don't possess this key won't help you
unless you can prove that you don't have it. I wish you well
in proving that it isn't hidden away on a disk in your
secretary's home, or squirreled away on the Internet somewhere.
We might have sent it to you last week; but according to the
Bill, the police won't have to prove you ever had it at all.
Even if you can prove that you don't have it you would
STILL be liable for imprisonment unless you give information to
the police that enables them to decrypt the key. Unfortunately
for you this is impossible, because we've destroyed all copies
of the key in our possession.
If the police ask you keep the demand to hand over the key
secret, telling anyone would render you liable to 5 years
in jail.
So you couldn't complain - or explain your predicament - to the
PM or Home Secretary, to the Chief Whip or a journalist, or
even to another policeman.
Happily for all of us, the E-Commerce Bill has not yet been
enacted by Parliament, so we have not in fact set you up for
jail time. The Bill will be introduced in the coming session.
I hope this exercise has demonstrated some of the drafting
flaws in the Bill as it stands - copies of which are available
from the DTI.
I hope we have also demonstrated that it is not the
perpetrators of crime who would suffer under these draconian
new powers, but innocent parties who are in receipt of
communications from miscreants. This is why such sober
organisations as BT, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft have
publicly criticised the Bill at each stage of its development.
I trust that when the Bill reaches the House we can rely on your
most careful scrutiny. Further analysis is available on our
web site at: http://www.stand.org.uk/
I am, Sir, Your most obedient servant,
Malcolm Hutty
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