British Police ask for right to attack websites. & info on "websites of terror"

international | sci-tech | other press Monday July 25, 2005 12:18 by compiling

"in the UK The Association of Chief Police Officers has asked for new legislation giving the security services "powers to attack identified websites". The proposal, along with one for a new offence covering "use of the internet to prepare, encourage, facilitate acts of terrorism" was part of the terror law 'shopping list' presented by ACPO at the Prime Minister Tony Blair's meeting with law enforcement agencies on Thursday 21 July."

"Much of ACPO's list covers territory where legislation is already planned by the Government and/or is part of broader international roadmaps being pushed by Europe's Council of Ministers and the G8. The request for a cyberwarfare capability, however, is one of several new proposals put forward by ACPO, and has wide-ranging implications. ACPO doesn't give specific details of what it envisages, but says the power "has significant benefits for counter terrorism and overlaps with other police priorities namely domestic extremism and paedophilia/child pornography." ACPO therefore clearly envisages the security services being given the power to attack a wider range of websites than those simply associated with international terrorism.

The security forces already have the capability to deal with websites that are within UK jurisdiction, which means that the major target must be sites beyond it. "This issue goes beyond national borders and requires significant international cooperation," says ACPO: "The need for appropriate authority and warrantry is implicit." For the international cooperation to be delivered, the Government would therefore need to get legalised hacking, interdiction and denial of service moved up the EU-G8 security agenda.

It's possibly worth noting that ACPO is unlikely to be alone among the UK security services in its desire to interfere with websites from afar. This fanciful item alleges among many other improbable things that the "warrants the MI5 watchers have obtained permit them to intercept Jamal’s e-mail conversations with those he is grooming, and to carry out 'portscans' on his computer. Using sophisticated software, they reach into it to search for incriminating files." Spyblog made the failed Spooks script gag before we could, but it's perfectly possible that there's a security services' agenda underlying the sub-Bond PR spin.

The proposed offence covering use of the internet "to prepare, encourage, facilitate acts of terrorism" is explained by ACPO as being a move to "suppress inappropriate internet usage in respect of today's global communication capability." The organisation says however that this "preventative measure" may be catered for in the "acts preparatory to terrorism" legislation the Government already has planned. ACPO's interest is likely to ensure that it is.

Interestingly, ACPO's general commentary on the 'acts preparatory' legislation says: " It will allow the police and intelligence agencies to intervene at an early stage early to protect the public and will go some way towards countering the negative messages we receive concerning terrorism arrests and subsequent charging/prosecution figures" (our emphasis). Government statistics on Terrorism Act arrests (which Charles Clarke has recently seemed reluctant to update in responses to parliamentary questions) show relatively few instances of charges being brought for terrorism offences, and tend to indicate that numbers of immigration and passport fraud offenders are being caught instead.

This might be taken to suggest that the security forces are looking in the wrong places for terrorists. One might perhaps observe that thinking up new offences that let you count more of the people you arrest as terrorist offenders is not necessarily the appropriate response to our current difficulties.

ACPO also, puzzlingly, calls for the creation of an offence "not to disclose encryption keys etc." This follows on from a call made by Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair a few days ago, and is presented as a necessary amendment to part 3 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, making it "an offence to fail to disclose such items." Part 3 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act however already includes such an offence. In 53, 5 it say that a person guilty of such an offence is liable to "imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine, or to both."

interested?
read it all at link-

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/23/acpo_seeks_new_terror_powers/

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Related news- article which appeared in Haaretz the Israeli daily immediately after July 7.

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An unusual announcement was posted this week on one of the Islamic sites on the Internet. Al-Qalaa, which usually serves as a message board for Al-Qaida, informed its readers that "several hours after the bombings in London, someone posted a notice in the name of an unknown organization claiming responsibility for the attacks. Although we have requested many times not to post such messages on our site, this person did so anyway." Soon after, the whole site was pulled from the Web by the service provider. Now Al-Qalaa is operating from a different address.

Such announcements are unusual on radical Islamic Web sites. Most are busy competing among themselves over the latest Al-Qaida scoop. They even provide their readers with alternative addresses in the event the "Western intelligence agencies close us down."

The question is why an organization, whether or not it is responsible for the attack, would post the news on a site that clearly discourages such postings. The answer may lie in the battle for control of cyberspace being waged by dozens, if not hundreds, of radical organizations. A site like Al-Qalaa that is radical, but not radical "enough," stands a good chance of being targeted by an even more radical underground, which will plant the kind of message that will cause the site to be shut down.

On one Islamic site, the site manager openly admitted that other Islamic organizations were a greater cause for worry than the CIA. "The Americans," he wrote, "are actually interested in what we have to say, but these organizations are fighting us, just as the Arab governments are, because we give their opponents a forum."

This rivalry between Internet sites apparently reflects the rivalry between an assortment of terror organizations the West tends to associate with Al-Qaida, but without solid proof. A day after the attacks in London, for example, an organization called Hafs al-Masri claimed responsibility. Abu Hafs is the alias of Mohammed Atef, an Al-Qaida operative who spent 1992-93 in Somalia planning attacks on American and UN bases there, and then went to Khartoum to report to Osama bin Laden, who was living in Sudan at the time.

Atef was born in the city of Minya in southern Egypt; he began his career as a terrorist by conspiring to take over the local police force. Atef managed to steal a few guns from watchmen at the local Coptic church and security guards around the city, then he moved to Cairo and hooked up with other Islamic extremists he met there. Captured by the Egyptian security forces, he was tried and sent to jail for five years. Upon his release, he went to Libya and from there to Saudi Arabia, finally ending up in Afghanistan. He married a Pakistani woman and joined forces with bin Laden, who appointed him "chief of operations" after Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri, the former chief, was killed. With Atef's help, bin Laden established another branch of operations in Nairobi, Kenya in 1993, with two shell companies - Asamaa and Tanzanite King - serving as a front for terrorist activities.

Hafs al-Masri returned to the headlines during the war in Iraq. In the summer of 2003, it claimed responsibility for the attack on the Al-Qanat Hotel in Baghdad, which was being used as a base for UN relief operations. This organization also took responsibility for the bombing of synagogues in Istanbul, as it appears to do every time some major attack takes place, no matter where. In this way, it has built up a connection to Al-Qaida, but without any findings that prove the link between them. Later it was discovered that the synagogue attacks were the work of Turkish terrorists, members of a local organization who fled to Syria and were eventually extradited to Turkey.

interested?
read it all at link-
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/600597.html