Minister attacks critics of e-mail interception

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http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3PFXQCH9C

Minister attacks critics of e-mail interception
By Jimmy Burns and Robert Shrimsley in London
Published: June 14 2000 20:39GMT | Last Updated: June 15 2000 03:39GMT

        

Jack Straw, the home secretary, on Wednesday hit back at critics of the 
government's bill to allow the interception of private e-mails, claiming that 
estimates of its potential costs in lost business were wildly exaggerated. 

In a forceful public intervention in the deepening debate over the bill, Mr 
Straw put himself squarely behind MI5, the security service, and the police 
in insisting that the bill was strictly a law enforcement issue. 

Mr Straw highlighted the bill - known as the regulation of investigatory 
powers - as an important instrument in the fight against organised crime. 

He said that similar legislation had been adopted successfully in the 
Netherlands and promised that the UK bill would be used sparingly and 
judiciously. 

In a letter to the Financial Times on Thursday, Mr Straw takes issue with a 
group of academics who warned that the e-mail bill could cost the UK £46bn 
($69.5bn) in a story published in the newspaper on Tuesday. 

The letter was personally handed by Mr Straw to an FT journalist at a press 
conference, after accusing the newspaper of giving too much credence to a 
report prepared by the London School of Economics. 

"I will wager my next year's salary and multiples of the circulation of the 
FT that the figures are wrong," he said. 

According to the LSE report, the bill was likely to lead to a loss of 
confidence in e-commerce, unacceptable costs to business and to the UK and an 
"onerous imposition on the rights of the individual". 

The LSE argues that the biggest cost will be in e-commerce revenue and 
investment lost to the UK economy due to the bill, which has been criticised 
by all the main trade associations, technology companies and internet service 
providers. 

But Mr Straw describes the estimate of lost revenue as "literally 
incredible", given that the total contribution of e-commerce to the UK's 
economy is put at around 0.6 per cent of gross domestic product -equivalent 
to about £5bn. 

He said that individual rights would be better protected from excessive 
snooping because the Government Technical Assistance Centre would handle 
material intercepted under warrant. 

Lord Cope, who is leading Conservative opposition to the bill in the House of 
Lords, the upper chamber, rejected Mr Straw's comments saying the bill 
imposed "potentially huge regulatory and financial burdens on business". 

Mr Straw was speaking during the second government launch in a month of plans 
to seize the assets of crime barons. He emphasised police estimates that 
criminal activity cost about £50bn a year, and that criminals were making use 
of internet technology to launder their proceeds.