UK Cops, Spies Blast “3-Strikes”

An Excerpt From : ZeroPaid

Says criminals will turn to encryption to avoid detection and “make prosecution harder because it increases the workload significantly.”

Law enforcement is the latest UK group to criticize Business Secretary Lord Mandelson’s “evolved” plan to to disconnect repeat file-sharers from the Internet.

Both police and the country’s spy services, MI5 and MI6, are concerned that the proposal will mean more criminals will begin encrypting their traffic to escape detection by copyright holders, thereby making their job much, much more difficult.

“It will make prosecution harder because it increases the workload significantly,” one law enforcement official told The Times.

MI5 and MI6 are also displeased with how it will too make their jobs much harder.

“The spooks hate it,” adds a source. “They think it is only going to make monitoring more difficult.”

They are especially angry that the govt decided to add disconnection to the list of possible technical measures without first giving them a chance to weigh in.

If you recall, Lord Mandelson feels the current timetable, which stands at 2-3 yrs for a 70% reduction using a combination of notifications and technical measures, would take an “unacceptable amount of time to complete in a situation that calls for urgent action.”

Tom Watson, UK Labour MP for West Bromwich East, and who tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) calling for a debate on “illicit file-sharing” a few weeks ago, is among the more intelligent politicians there bright enough to have realized that “disconnecting alleged offenders will be futile given that it is relatively easy for determined file-sharers to mask their identity or their activity to avoid detection.”

It seems as though law enforcement has realized this as well.

I guess busting teen music pirates is much more important than nabbing terrorists, online scammers, and identity thieves.

Stay tuned.