[thechat] moving to the UK - why?

[Simon Batistoni]

Dave Fitch wrote:
> On 1/3/01, "Abhay S. Kushwaha" <abhay at kushwaha.com> said:
>
> >What is the RIP act?
>
> The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
>
> And  yes, wiretap includes monitoring your email at your ISP. Which
> is why a number of people are moving mail servers to Ireland, where
> they are remarkably more civilised about these sorts of things.

What I'm not clear on is whether I'm supposed to attach our dedicated email
server, and our dedicated outbound SMTP relay (both of which are sitting
under my desk) to one of the Government's black boxes. Am I breaking the
law, or are they just hoping they'll grab my emails at the recipient end...?

> It is
> also illegal to tell someone that they are being snooped upon,
> hackers are now able to be prosecuted as terrorists, etc. etc..

Yep, except this last one is in a separate bill - The Terrorism Act 2000,
which became law last week. Of course, given (probably) the Real IRA's
decision to leave an explosive-filled taxi outside the BBC on Saturday
night, we'll no doubt be subjected to plenty of rhetoric in the coming weeks
about how lucky we are that we're all protected by these new laws. I imagine
most of this drivel will be spewed forth by Big Brother himself, our home
secretary Jack Straw.

Me, I'm working hard on making my millions asap, so I can go and live
somewhere a little less totalitarian before they close the borders, and
start forcing us to pray to giant effigies of Tony and Jack five times a
day.