On
May 9th, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II addressed the British Parliament and dealt a
blow to the privacy of every person living in or visiting the UK. From her
speech:
My
government intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law
enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under
strict safeguards to protect the public, subject to scrutiny of draft clauses.
What
is the UK government’s plan to implement this new power for law enforcement?
The
Draft Communications Data Bill plans to expand the scope of data required to be
retained by ISPs and telecommunications companies, as well as increasing the
duration that data is to be retained. It also requires these companies to open
their data centers fully to government inspection. What will this bill’s scope
include?
■Every phone call you make or receive
from a land line, mobile phone, or VoIP account (think Skype or Vonage)
■If possible, where you were when you
made or received the phone call
■Every email you send or receive
■Every chat conversation you have
■Every website you visit, and what
you viewed on that website
The
scope of this bill includes accessing social networks outside the UK, such as
Facebook and Twitter, which were not within the scope of previous laws.
All
this information will be collected and routed to the GCHQ (similar to the NSA
in the United States), where it will be analyzed in real-time.
In
essence, the government proposes to violate your communications privacy … and
the privacy of everyone you contact. The bill will affect you whether you are
living permanently in the UK or just visiting.
We
have all heard the arguments about why the government needs to collect this
information. They need to keep everyone safe from terrorists, child molesters,
and criminal organizations. But if we REALLY want to know why the UK government
wants this bill, let’s dive into the details. Specifically, on page 25 (page 29
of the PDF), look for this section near the middle of the page:
(6)
For the purposes of this section it is necessary to obtain communications data
for a permitted purpose if it is necessary to do so-
(g)
for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other
imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department
Ah
… so, in addition to all the other “criminals” the government claims they want
to protect you from, they want to violate your privacy to make sure you are
paying all the taxes they think are due … because you might be a criminal too!
This authority can be granted to any UK government authority at any level who
believes you owe them money. So this is NOT exclusively a tool for national
security or law enforcement!
Planting
Your Electronic Flag Elsewhere Is Essential
I
don’t write these articles to scare readers … though the content is often both
scary and offensive to those who value their privacy. I write this so that
people will take action. Right now. Today.
The
majority of people who read articles from International Man are looking at how
to internationalize and diversify their assets and investments outside of their
home country. This is often as much due to the opportunities that are available
as it is to protect their assets, investments, and even themselves from
predatory governments. To put your plan in place, you will be working with real
estate brokers, investment advisors, lawyers, bankers and others from all over
the world.
Why
ruin all the work you are putting into your international diversification plan
by doing all this from an email account in your home country? Or contacting
your foreign residency and passport specialist from your home phone?
Simply
put, you are planting banking, investment and residency flags internationally
to get security, privacy, and opportunity. You need to plant electronic flags
internationally for the same reasons.
We
discussed how to select an international email service in a previous article
here at International Man. Getting your email communications outside of your
current jurisdiction makes it much more difficult for your home authorities to
read what you are sending out. This is even more important when what you are
internationalizing is not something that is required to be reported at home
(such as directly-held international real estate for US citizens). Send and
store your email about those activities on a system outside of your home
country.
We
have also discussed how to select and use a VPN service to give you privacy
from governments and hackers alike when using the Internet. When governments
take the step of recording all internet traffic, like outlined above, using a
VPN service to protect all the data leaving your computer is the ONLY way to
take back some of your privacy.
The
Next Steps
If
you are putting together a plan for international diversification, make a note
in the plan to acquire an email account in another jurisdiction. (Ideally, in a
different jurisdiction than one you are planning to live in, as well. Remember
that all your flags should be diversified!) Getting an international email
account will be one of the easiest steps in the plan, by far.
If
you have already started working with people overseas and are discussing
sensitive topics, get an international email account immediately, and start
using it. You cannot remove the emails that the government may have already
recorded, but you can stop sending them more.
Look
into the various VPN options which are available. Various VPN service providers
have been discussed in the International Man forum (if you’re not yet an IM
member, you can join here for free). Make a decision, and subscribe to a
service. Use this VPN when connecting to your international email account and
any websites needed to access overseas accounts.
(war is crime)
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