U.K. PUSHES AHEAD WITH E-SNOOPING

Legislation Would Allow Government to Monitor Private Messages

LONDON - As the Clinton administration formally enters the debate about law
enforcement surveillance in cyberspace, the British government is about to
enact a law that would give the authorities broad powers to intercept and
decode e-mail messages and other communications between, companies,
organizations and individual citizens.

The measure, which goes further than the U.S. plan unveiled Monday in
Washington, would make Britain the only Western democracy in which the
government could require anyone using the Internet to turn over the keys to
decoding electronic mails and other data encrypted for secrecy.

Such a measure would be an important tool for the government, as data are
increasingly being encrypted for reasons of security and privacy.

Despite criticism from all sides, the bill is likely to become law as it
passes through its final stage in the House of Lords and returns to the
House of Commons next week. The Labour government, which offered the plan,
holds a wide majority in Parliament.

Government officials maintain that the measure is essential if law
enforcement agencies are to combat the sophisticated modern crime that is
enhanced by access to the Internet, including pedophilia, drug smuggling,
money laundering, terrorism and trafficking in refugees.

"The powers in the bill are necessary and proportionate to the threat posed
by 21st century criminals, no more, no less," Charles Clarke, a Home Office
minister of state, said last week.

But the measure has had a rocky time in Parliament, where lawmakers have
vehemently objected to several provisions, including one that would give
the government new powers to require Internet service providers to install
"black box" surveillance systems that would sort and send a range of data
and e-mails to a monitoring center controlled by Britain's domestic
security service, M15.

Such systems are also being used in the United States by the FBI, where the
technology is known as "Carnivore," because it can quickly extract the
"meat" from vast quantities of e-mail messages and other communications
between computers.

But under the British measure, authorities could require firms to install
and maintain the black boxes at their own expense and according to
technological specifications set out by the government.

In addition, to justify such surveillance, authorities would not be
obligated to take elaborate steps to persuade an independent arbiter such
as a court that a crime had probably been committed. In the United States,
the FBI must first obtain a search warrant before using the Carnivore
technology, which is then installed and maintained by the bureau.

Failure to turn over a decryption key or to convert encrypted data or
messages into plain text could. result in a two-year prison sentence.
Although many countries are considering similar bills to deal with
encrypted data, only Singapore and Malaysia have so far enacted them.

The legislation would allow the British government to tap into and monitor
electronic communication for a host of broad reasons, including to protect
national security, to "safeguard the country's well-being," and to prevent
and detect serious crime. That last, farreaching category might include,
for instance, "a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose."

The measure would not require traditional warrants, signed by judges, in
every instance. Warrants for e-mail surveillance could be issued by
authorities in every government agency, from the home secretary, who
controls a range of domestic and legal matters, to police officials
investigating criminal activity.

In some cases, such as the surveillance of a user's Internet traffic
pattern, showing which World Wide Web sites have been viewed and with whom
e-mails have been exchanged, no warrants would be required.

'ne effect of this part of the bill "can justifiably be described as mass
surveillance of Internet activities without judicial warrant or adequate
oversight," said a report prepared for the British Chambers of Commerce by
a team of professors at the London School of Economics and University
College London.

Opponents of the measure in Britain range from trade unions and Amnesty
International, to representatives of big business and newspapers across the
political spectrum.

Not only does the bill violate basic civil liberties, they argue, but it
would also impose onerous costs on Internet service providers, subject them
to anticompetitive restraints and drive business out of Britain altogether.

"This is Big Brother government realizing that unless they get their act
together, technology is going to make them impotent, by allowing
individuals to bypass the regulations, and the spies, of the state," said
Ian Angell, professor of information systems at the London School of
Economics and a consultant on the recent report. "I'm a supporter of the
police, and I believe they should be given powers, but there has to be due
process, and this bill doesn't provide that."

It is not yet clear how much the measure will cost. The government has put
aside L20 million, or about $30 million, to help businesses set up the new
technology, but as it stands now, Internet service providers themselves
would bear the bulk of the costs of the black boxes. The London School of
Economics report estimated that the measure would cost British business
about E640 million over the next five years. "If Internet service providers
are made to take on board the costs, then the costs will be put through to
the consumer," said William Roebuck, an executive on the legal advisory
group at the E-Center, a trade association that studies standards and
practices in e-commerce. "What's going to happen is that companies are
going to reroute everything away from the U.K. and take their business
abroad."

Among the companies that have said the measure would make them reluctant to
do business in Britain is Poptel, one of the country's oldest Internet
service providers, which serves the noncommercial sector, including
charities, trade unions and lobbying organizations.

"There are a number of our users who come into quite legitimate conflict
with the government," said Shaun Fensom, Poptel's chairman, who said he
might transfer some of the company's operations offshore. "They are
concerned that the government could classify some of their legitimate
activity as being snoopable. "

Some critics are charging that the measure has been drawn up to give the
government as broad a latitude as possible.

"As a human rights organization, our work is based on the confidentiality
of statements we take from opponents of governments around the world who
are possibly victims of human rights violations by these governments," said
Halya Gowan, a researcher at Amnesty International in London. "But under
this bill, we won't be able to guarantee confidentiality anymore."