From: Caspar Bowden [cb@fipr.org]
Sent: 26 March 2000 12:31
To: FIPR News Archive (E-mail)
Subject: Sunday People 26/3/2000: "FORGET YOUR PASSWORD... END UP IN
JAIL"

http://www.people.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P28S1.shtml
FORGET YOUR PASSWORD... END UP IN JAIL
INTERNET FURY AT STRAW

BIG Brother wants to know your computer password - and he'll throw you in
jail if you don't tell him.

Home Secretary Jack Straw aims to make it a criminal offence to refuse to
tell police or secret services the way into your personal computer.

And you could go down for two years, even if you've only forgotten the vital
word.

Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill, any data you have stored
will be presumed to be incriminating unless you can prove otherwise. Civil
liberties groups are furious over the controversial new legislation, which
is part of the Government's bid to crack down on computer fraud, internet
terrorism and child porn.

The Lib Dems' internet spokesman Dr Vincent Cable said: "There are genuine
concerns about why MI5 need this degree of control. This is a very large
hammer to crack a small nut."

A spokesman for the Internet lobby group Foundation for Internet Policy
Research said: "This is a really draconian law.

"If you forget your password you'll be up before a court trying to prove
it - and then it will depend on how respectable you look.

"The Internet and e-commerce is just starting to boom in Britain now, and
people will only realise later they have lost out."

America, France, Ireland and Germany have already rejected similar laws.