Opposition To New Zealand Hacking Bill Mounts

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.newsbytes.com/news/00/158161.html

By Adam Creed, Newsbytes
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND,
15 Nov 2000, 12:23 AM CST

The New Zealand Greens political party has voiced its opposition to a
planned amendment to the country's crime bill that could allow
security services to hack into citizens' computers and intercept
e-mail and faxes.

The long-awaited legislation is mainly intended to criminalize
computer hacking in New Zealand. The country has been without specific
legislation outlawing malicious hacking.

While supporting the main thrust of the planned laws, the Greens do
not want to support a law that also gives the police and security
services the right to hack into computers and intercept e-mail and
faxes.

"We won't support interception powers for state agencies, which in the
electronic area would be a considerable assault on people's privacy,"
said a Greens spokesperson, adding that such new powers would be much
more open to abuse.

"There are serious doubts that such interception would do much to
catch criminals," he added. "Real villains can easily avoid detection
through using disguised language, encryption, temporary Hotmail
addresses, rerouters and unlisted mobile phones. Therefore the cost to
public privacy might greatly outweigh the beneficial effect of
catching more criminals."

He said that "misuse" of the world-wide Echelon interception network
already illustrated the potential for privacy violations.

Information Minister Paul Swain responded to criticism of the proposed
laws by calling for elected representatives to pass a motion that
would table the amendment first.

He said there would be time to debate the proposed laws when the Bill
is referred back to Parliament.

"However the overarching purpose of this (amendment) is to make
hacking illegal in New Zealand I think that is vital for every New
Zealander who owns a computer. We need to send a strong message that
hacking is not cool, it is not clever, it is a serious crime," Swain
added.


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