Blacklisted sites, self-censorship, and the snooper’s charter
The fact that the UK government now has the legal right to examine our browsing history for a year may not be the most worrying aspect of the law which yesterday received its royal assent. The fact that 48 different government agencies now will have access to our browsing history is not the most worrying fact. The most worrying thing about the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is that this data will inevitably be leaked and accessible to all.
Amber Rudd, the dramatically inept and under-qualified Home Secretary has touted the invasion of privacy and the attack on free speech enacted in the bill as offering “substantial privacy protection”. This is Orwellian to a degree that would embarrass Orwell. In other words, the Tories tell us they’re removing our privacy to protect our privacy.
This makes sense in a world where benefits are cut to encourage growth and taxes are cut to encourage greed.
That Britain is creating legislation that is truly a world first is obviously something to be proud of. And no doubt tyrannical regimes the world over — often supplied with British weapons, let’s remember — will be looking on with envy. I’m sure there is already a government department within the export guarantees support group ready to assist such regimes with the implementation and management of similar policies should the price be right.
There will be the usual claims that there is nothing to fear if you visit only anodyne sites on the web. (Remember that the law also allows security services and police to hack your phone and computer to access all communications records and data, so make sure you don’t accidentally call the wrong number or make inappropriate jokes or share derogatory remarks about certain politicians or the head of your local ambulance service.)
The problem really becomes one of self-censorship. Censorship always works best before the event rather than after. If a citizen thinks twice before visiting a site — in the same way that media outlets may refrain from examining government actions or criticising policies too closely when it depends on the favours of government to publish or broadcast — the government’s work is done.
The new law, therefore, is not really a way to track browsing history but to prevent people visiting sites that may undermine government propaganda. In a world where our governments are simply policy machines for supporting corporate greed, controlling the message becomes more and more vital to the financial interests of our corporate masters.
The recent release of a badly researched and poorly justified list of fake news sites — which contained both Private Eye and Truthdig, for example, but not the Daily Mail, perhaps Britain’s most unabashed purveyor of fake news — is a case in point.
Next time, it may not be fake news sites that are listed and, with little rigour, disseminated across the government’s loyal mouthpieces, but unpatriotic sites or subversive sites. A government needs only to name a site as beyond the pale for many to wish to make sure its name doesn’t show up on their browsing history.
Equally, it will be easy to add discredited sites to a list supposedly visited by someone the government wishes to expel, imprison, or worse. Do we really trust that records gathered in the dark will remain sacrosanct?
The effect on research or a common desire to discover alternative opinions on just about any matter will be heinous.
One thing is clear; in this new world, rebellion will take the form of using the internet as it was intended.
