In the UK, running a blog over HTTPS is an act of terrorism, says Scotland Yard
In a bizarre case, Scotland Yard is accusing a person for six separate acts of preparing terrorism. Those six acts include researching encryption, developing an “encrypted version” of his blog, and instructing others how to use encryption.
This is one of those cases where you do a double take. As reported by Ars Technica, UK’s Scotland Yard is charging a Cardiff person with preparing for terrorism – but the list of charges shows activities we associate with very ordinary precautionary privacy measures. “Developing an encrypted version of a blog” can be read as, and probably means, publishing it over HTTPS – such as this blog and many others, simply because it’s considered best practice.
He was also charged with having a flash drive in a cufflink with a bootable operating system, presumably Tails. Using open and free operating systems with the capacity for general-purpose encryption is now an act of terrorism?
UPDATE: Scotland Yard describes the case here in much more detail. The two charges discussed here are items 3 and 5:
Count 3: Preparation for terrorism. Between 31 December 2015 and 22 September 2016 [name redacted], with the intention of assisting another or others to commit acts of terrorism, engaged in conduct in preparation for giving effect to his intention namely, by researching an encryption programme, developing an encrypted version of his blog site and publishing the instructions around the use of programme on his blog site. Contrary to section 5 Terrorism Act 2006.
Count 5: On or before 22 September 2016 [name redacted] had in his possession an article namely one Universal Serial Bus (USB) cufflink that had an operating system loaded on to it for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism, contrary to section 57 Terrorism Act 2000.
While this adds significant nuance to the Ars article above, the primary point still stands as to count three: the criminal act was researching encryption, developing an encrypted version of a blog site (which describes publishing over HTTPS and a few other things), and teaching encryption. The intent of this criminal act was to aid and assist terrorism, but the criminal act was still researching, deploying, and teaching cryptography. This is a hugely important nuance – quoting a comment from user Withabeard on Reddit:
He hasn’t been charged for helping terrorists.
He has been charged for having an encrypted blog. The reason authorities have chosen to charge him, is because that blog may contain material that helps terrorists. The distinction is small, but it has a massive impact on how we apply laws in the UK.
Helping other people conduce killing of other humans is already illegal in the UK, so that is what he should be charged with if there is evidence he did it.
But he has literally been charged with “instruction or training in the use of encryption programmes”.
It shouldn’t matter what the encryption was going to be used for, no-one should ever be charged with doing that.
(end of update insertion)
Three things are noteworthy in this bizarre case, in terms of predictions coming true.
The first is that four years ago, I predicted that the UK won’t just jail you for encryption, but for carrying astronomical noise, too. It’s already a crime to not give up keys to an encrypted document in the UK (effectively making encryption illegal), but it’s worse than that – it’s a five-years-in-prison offense to not give up the keys to something that appears encrypted to law enforcement, but may not actually be. In other words, carrying astronomical noise is a jailable offense, because it is indistinguishable from something encrypted, unless you can pull the documents the police claim are hidden in the radio noise from a magic hat. This case takes the UK significantly closer to such a reality, with charging a person for terrorism (!) merely for following privacy best practices.
The second observation is that in the cat-and-mouse game between surveillance and encryption, there will come a point where authorities start mistaking a right to attempt breaking into somebody’s privacy with a right to succeed with breaking into somebody’s privacy. Such a right has never existed, of course: even if law enforcement gets a search warrant for a house, including a right to attempt breaking a safe, there is never a right to succeed breaking into a safe, or a right to magically find what they think is there.
The third observation is the bizarre charge of “researching encryption” and “instructing others in how to use encryption”. According to Scotland Yard, learning and teaching mathematics is apparently terrorism. This would affect lots of efforts – for example, EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere and Linux Foundation’s Let’s Encrypt. Possibly even all the Linux repositories, as they contain lots of encryption and instruct others in setting it up.
This is a case that needs to be closely watched and Scotland Yard needs more than a slap on the wrist here.
Privacy remains your own responsibility.
UPDATE II: People who are pointing out that Scotland Yard is strictly legally in the right are most likely correct, but that’s missing the point. See the followup post: Scotland Yard, Terrorism, and Encryption: How wording of charges contain hidden layers designed to shape public opinion.
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52 Comments
ROFL
Poor guy, though :(
If you buy batteries, a clock or a pizza with the intention of helping terrorists then you commit an offence. That is not the government criminalising batteries, clocks or pizzas. It is punishing assistance to terrorists. It’s the same with encryption.
This is literal insanity.
You clearly don’t realize that you just asserted that everything should be illegal whenever authorities want it to be.
Legislating intent itself is already insane, and you just cubed the insanity by an abstract noun and an every day object.
It’s literally like criminalizing ordering pizza via the “desire” to “blasphemy.” Prove desire(intent), define blasphemy(terrorism), and criminalize pizza(https).
So the guy is possibly a member of Daesh operating within the UK. I’m not so sure the cops say HTTPS is illegal per se’. everyone uses it. Not revealing the key to access the site as part of the investigation is like a US citizen quoting the fifth amendment. you cannot do that here any more.
Habeas Corpus is dead. We are now under the EU’s napoleonic code where you are guilty before charged & can be kept in prison until you admit how guilty you are.
If Daesh is an enemy then the US who enabled them should be considered our enemy. Kudos to Putin eh?
Actually I think you’ll find that the UK not only devised this “napoleonic code” without any EU mandate, but directly in violation of it, since RIPA (the law that facilitated the above travesty), along with various other bits of Draconian UK legislation, have been legally challenged on numerous occasions by the EU.
https://www.privacyinternational.org/node/830
The fact is that the UK would be a considerably more oppressive regime without EU oversight, and thanks to the xenophobic half of the population, sadly that is now inevitable.
I suspect the author has not yet read the two sections under which the accused is charged. They require “intent” and “purpose”. IANAL, but I’m 100% sure that conviction would require proof of intent to commit a terrorist act, and/or proof that his purpose was to commit same.
Well that would be a handy way to force soneone to decrypt a message,wouldnt it? “If you cant prove its not about terrorism and want to hide the key,we can only assume you at least intended it to be”
Nothing in any Act can override the courts’ presumption of innocence.
Scriptbot detected.
Copy and paste more responses there A.L.I.C.E.
Alice? Who the f*** is Alice? ;-)
The sections in question do not require intent. Section 57 (possession of an article) requires “circumstances which give rise to a reasonable suspicion that his possession is for a purpose connected with […] terrorism”. Section 58 (collection of information) requires the information to be “of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.
No intent required. No actual support of terrorism required. Mere suspicion and usefulness of the information for terrorism is enough to be charged with a criminal offence.
No, you’ve accidentally selectively quoted only one of the two Sections under which he’s charged. And you’ve accidentally quoted another section that’s not relevant.
§5 of the 2006 Act requires “intent”
§57 of the 2000 Act requires “purpose”
Nothing in the Acts can override the presumption of innocence.
You are correct that Section 5 of the TA 2006 requires intent.
However, Section 75 of the TA 2000 does not require purpose. It merely requires that the circumstances of the possession of an article give rise to a reasonable suspicion that the possession is for a purpose connected with terrorism. So the “purpose” is a completely subjective concept of the hypothetical observer whose “suspicion” is aroused. To charge under S. 57 TA 2000, it is enough for the police to suspect that the article is being possessed for the purpose of terrorism.
The presumption of innocence is overturned in S. 57 TA 2000, because the accused now needs to prove that the article is not being possessed for the purpose of terrorism. The same applies to S. 58 TA (which was not invoked in this case).
Your claim that “nothing in the Acts can override the presumption of innocence” is incorrect. Please read S. 57(2) and S.58(3) TA 2000, which are a reversal of the presumption of innocence.
No mere Act can override the Court’s presumption of innocence.
You keep repeating this claim with no supporting explanation. S.57 and 58 TA 2000 do override the presumption of innocence, as is very clear from their wording. The defendant has to prove his innocence (“It is a defence….”).
Primary legislation cannot override the presumption of innocence
By that token, anyone using a vpn is also at risk of spurious accusations.The government are pushing back the boundaries of their surveilance overreach once more.
no they are not
Only if they are using the VPN in the preparation of an act of terrorism. Same as if they bought a car with the purpose of using it in an act of terrorism. This does not outlaw the use of VPNs, or indeed cars.
Considering they can define “terrorism” however they please you just defended establishing permanent Marshall law.
You people are horrifying.
At this rate the UK will look like the DPRK in a decade.
The definition of terrorism is not arbitrary – it’s clearly defined in the TA 2000. If “they” want to redefine it they will need a new Act of Parliament. You could have argued that the definition is too broad, but you didn’t as you haven’t even bothered to read the relevant legislation before your lofty pronouncements.
You’re horrified? Really? I suspect you would have found being caught up in the Baltic Exchange bombing, or 7/7, as I was, rather more horrifying.
XD So glad I logged into disqus and saw this 5 months later. X)
Paste me exact said “definition” and I’ll tell you in turn exactly how it’s open to law daily interpretation. You’re high on bath salts if you actually think officials aren’t making judgement calls constantly about what is and isn’t “terrorism.”
Terrorism’s a nonsensical concept ultimately. Just a way of scolding whoever we don’t like, especially if they are weaker than us militarily. (Not that western culture is even close to ready to face such truths.) Like the old saying; One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Was shock and awe NOT organized terrorism? Is not ALL COMBAT designed to murder and or terrify (“demoralize”) your opponent into submission?
At any rate *encrypting web traffic* isn’t terrorism, or crime, or combat, by any stretch of the rational imagination. Even encrypted military communications aren’t combat. To assert that speech is combat makes you the worst kind of authoritarian. Which brings us to why I didn’t say I’m horrified, I said *you people* (authoritarians) are horrifying.
Need I really make the obvious historical references to what power drunk authoritarians turn into if given power? X)