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| Monday, 27 March, 2017 | |
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Never waste a good crisis?
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| The Government is exploiting public concern about danger on our streets to press for even more access to encrypting services specifically WhatsApp, used by a terrorist minutes before he mowed down people on Westminster bridge in his car and then stabbed a police officer to death.
Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Neil Basu said on March 25: "We still believe that (the Westminster terrorist) acted alone on the day and there is no information or intelligence to suggest there are further attacks planned." This was one of a number of police briefings that there was no reason to fear further attacks. Police could only have been clear about this if they had already intercepted his WhatsApp message. WikiLeaks recently said WhatsApp and other app encryption can be side stepped by hacking into the devices "that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied". See my blog. However, to do this the 'intelligence' services must have already tapped into this person's phone, suggesting that they either tap a lot of phones, or this criminal was high on their list of potential terrorists. If he was 'on the radar', as the 'intelligence' services put it, then how come he was able to commit this offence unchallenged, or to put it another way, what point is there in having 'radar' if targets go out and commit terrorist offences anyway? | |
| Posted by Jonathan Brind. | |
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| Monday, 27 March, 2017 | |