On 1 July 2012 13:00, Tom Morris <tom(a)tommorris.org> wrote:
None of which will matter if the law is so broadly
drawn that
Wikimedia UK or even an individual Wikimedian could be held to be an
operator of a telecommunications system.
It's entirely foreseeable that UK police would consider anyone with
'higher' rights (probably +sysop, definitely +bureaucrat, and
without-doubt +oversight, +checkuser, and +steward) as having
sufficient level of control and access to privileged data that normal
members of the public wouldn't that they count as 'operators'.
In the worst, most paranoid case, this would mean that privs would
have to be removed from all Wikimedians resident in the UK or
otherwise subject to UK jurisdiction (e.g. employed by a company with
a UK office, or having financial accounts run by banks with UK
offices, or occasionally flying to/through the UK, or having family
who would be similarly affected).
If this were to be the case, the only rational choice for the
community, given the normal criminal gagging clauses for admitting
helping the police in such cases and so massive uncertainly and doubt,
would be to de-priv every user who might be affected by these rules,
for WMF to sack every staff member so affected[*], and for the
community to have to consciously avoid flying via London to any event,
ever.
I'd imagine - hope - that the movement would be concerned about this
state of affairs. And I'd suggest for those that think this goes way
beyond what the law would ever end up being this 'bad' should read the
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, or study the effect of
Brazilian and Italian heavy regulation of the Internet that have led
to US-based companies' staff being arrested when changing 'planes in
these countries. Trivialising this may well prove a very bad idea.
[*] I declare my interest.
J.
--
James D. Forrester
jdforrester(a)gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)