Regulation of the Investigatory Powers Act

Function

For the purposes of preventing or identifying crime, preventing disorder, protecting public safety and health, or for the economic well-being of the United Kingdom, government officials in Britain can invoke RIPA on the grounds of national security. As the act was originally passed, nine organizations including the police and security services could use RIPA powers. By 2008 that number ballooned to 792.

RIPA enables the government, council or agency invoking it to demand access to a customer's communications in secret from an ISP, allows mass surveillance of communications in transit, forces ISPs to secretly install surveillance equipment if demanded, permits full monitoring of individual internet activities, and prevents the existence of a specific such data collection process or information collected by it from being revealed in court.

In addition to normalizing wholesale surveillance of individuals and the public as a whole, one of the more onerous provisions of RIPA to some British subjects is Part III of the act, which institutes prison sentences of 2 years for individuals who refuse to provide data encryption keys requested by the government. The language of this part of the act assumes that anyone who ever had such a key, even automatically through use of a computer, might always be in possession of it and imposes the burden on them of proving they no longer have it. This sort of "guilty until proven innocent" mentality represents the most dangerous aspect of a government intent on total security at the expense of liberty.

Understandably, RIPA has been vigorously protested by many in Britain and remains controversial to this day. At least one prominent figure, Sir Simon Milton of the Local Government Association, sent letters to council leaders urging RIPA powers not be used except in legitimate and grave circumstances, and that the powers be scrutinized and reviewed annually. Nevertheless, the Daily Telegraph reported over a thousand RIPA-based surveillance operations each month in local councils, mostly for petty offenses like potential infractions of school zone boundaries.

Like the USA Patriot Act, RIPA was passed with little debate in the legislative body. RIPA, however, came before the attacks of September 11, 2001. It's surveillance of communications and electronic data are something of a precursor to the warrantless wire-tapping program in the U.S. that's been listed as just one of many impeachable offenses by the Bush administration. After protracted debate in Congress, individual communications conglomerations like AT&T who participate in the surveillance were retroactively immunized against suit. The controversial Part III of RIPA has not yet been invoked or enforced by the British government.