Clarke fails to understand his own data retention proposal

Charles Clarke manages to misunderstand his own EU data retention proposal and thinks we have too many rights anyway.

From Sky News:

[Charles Clarke] told Euro MPs at the parliament in Strasbourg: “Of course criminals and terrorists use modern technology – the internet and mobile communications – to plan and carry out their activities.

“We can only effectively contest them if we know what they are communicating. Without that knowledge we are fighting them with both hands tied behind our backs.”

The data retention draft framework would require telecos and ISPs to retain traffic data – traffic about where you were when you made a call, and who you called, for example – not the actual phone call itself. Even if this legislation makes it on to the EU books, Clarke still won’t be able to listen to your mobile phone conversations, although I suspect he’d really like to.

As for human rights, well, Clarke seems to think we don’t really need them:

He stressed that a rethink of the [European] Convention [on Human Rights] – which prevents terror suspects being deported to countries where they may face persecution – will be central to the EU’s response to the bombings.

He also made a dig at the reluctance of Euro MPs to agree access to information technology used by terrorists because of fears of breaching human rights.

He warned: “This European Parliament, as well as national parliaments, needs to face up to the fact that the legal framework within which we currently operate makes the collection and use of this intelligence very difficult, and in some cases impossible.”

The legal framework which protects citizens from undue harassment, invasion of privacy and loss off free speech? That framework? I rather liked it, myself.

The BBC, meanwhile, tells us that according to the Home Office, data retention won’t really cost all that much, honest guv:

A Home Office dossier published on Wednesday – entitled Liberty and Security: Striking the Right Balance – hits back at industry fears the cost of retention would be excessive.

It says that a government-funded project by a mobile phone company to keep data for 12 months had cost £875,999 (1,291m euros).

I’d like to see independent and comprehensive studies completed for a number of telecos and ISPs before I believed that this isn’t going to put smaller ISPs out of business and increase our phone bills.