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I'm FUMING! I'm just not sure why or at whom to direct my fume.

08:40 / 26.05.04

Hello, my mate Peter's been and gone and we won 5 pool games each. He had a story to tell me, he said on the phone before he came around. Hmmmm... I thought, so what else is new? Turns out this one is actually interesting, and not a small bit horrifying I think. Bear with it, you'll see why eventually.

A few years ago Kevin, then a sales rep at a printing company, was a client of mine. Peter bumped into him the other day and Kevin was telling the story of a print job gone bad, and mad. He has spent a bit of time in court lately, the Supreme Court in fact, the biggest one. This is because of a brochure job he handled for an opal company. It seems the photograph used on the cover was a very specific type of opal only found in one location, the rights to which are owned by a rival company to that producing the brochure. There was, therefore, a copyright issue to be dealt with.

Rather than just taking action against the company who commissioned the brochures' production, the Opal Company, legal action was also taken against the printers for producing it and also for organising the artwork on the clients behalf. Guess who did the artwork. Yep, me. I took whatever "original" image Kevin gave me, I scanned it, touched it up in photoshop and inserted the resulting tiff into the artwork file and then burnt this to disk and supplied it to the printers. I have not been summoned to court and this story today is the first I've heard of the entire court case. Kevin, who has been acquitted of any wrongdoing, has had to fork out over $4000 in legal fees on this matter.

Within the evidence produced and discussed however was, apparently, the fact that I, "Derek Armsden", was the producer of the artwork and that I was, during the period of preparation of evidence for the trial, "living with (my) girlfriend, Heather S*****, in England". Further it was revealed that my "email traffic was intercepted" during that time.

WWWWWHHHHHAAAAATTTTT?????

09:07 / 26.05.04

That's appalling! I'm not familiar enough with the legal situation to be able to advise you but the EFF may well be able to help.

09:24 / 26.05.04

What complete arse. Don't worry Mu Mu, I'm fairly sure that you are not liable in any way.

Essentially the law is the dogma of common sense. Whilst it's fair enough to see the opal company's point of view (because come on - that would be annoying if their main rival's own opal was on their company literature), it is unfair of them to be getting high and mighty about it if you didn't know.

Because of the whole innocent until proven guilty thang, the burden of proof iss on them to show that they told you (or someone else who then told you) what was and was not suitable. Also - I'm assuming a proof was offered etc.

Ulitmately I think it's a question of damage limitation, both to their reputation and to gain some sort of financial recompense.

pointless and uncalled for

09:37 / 26.05.04

Go see the Citizens Advice Bureau who should be able to give you some specialist Data Protection Act and Freedom of Information advice.

You can then proceed with obtaining details of court records pertaining to you and follow the train to determine why this information was included in the trial hearing and who was intercepting e-mails.

Once you are in possession of the facts, then it will be time to return to the CAB and get some legal advice. That's when it's a good time to fume.

09:38 / 26.05.04

I'm not worried about any liability really, if the sales rep who gave me the job isn't liable then there's no way I'm going to be. And it was the company we worked for who apparently stole the exclusive image of the competitors opal and gave it to us to use on their own brochure who's at fault. I'm just incensed that, by simply doing my job, I can so easily become a legitimate target for surveillance. I just think it's absurd that my private email correspondence can be intercepted for no reason that I know about at the time, and that the first I hear about it is when the fact that it happened gets read out in the evidence of a supreme court case.

I'm shaking my head in disbelief (for those of you who can't see me).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:43 / 26.05.04

Yeah, that's... wrong. I think I'd be pretty fucking livid in the same situation.

09:44 / 26.05.04

Yes I see what you mean Mu Mu - although none of this is news to you really is it? Echelon have been doing it for years.

Words like bomb, semtex, saddam, islamist etc set off triggers and they do survellance on vast swathes of communications.

Speaking of finding stuff out in court cases though - some poor soul found out he had HIV while being cross examined by the barrister.

pointless and uncalled for

09:46 / 26.05.04

The thing is, it wasn't intercepted for no reason and you have a right to find out what that reason was.

I personally would want to know, and take it to task if it was unjustified.

10:11 / 26.05.04

Hang on there. How are you so sure it wasn't intercepted for no reason? And are you sure he has a right to know what that reason is? The law in these matters does not always cover individual cases as IP rights, as well as individual vs company rules are evolving all the time.

Without knowing all the facts about what was intercepted (and you mention MuMu that you became a legitimate target?)
and what the law id in these matters, I think it would be folly to rush in spending time and money just because you feel slighted.

pointless and uncalled for

10:17 / 26.05.04

How are you so sure it was intercepted for no reason?

I said it was intercepted for a reason.

And are you sure he has a right to know what that reason is?

With the exception of a very few national security issues then yes he does. I'm sure because I spent a number of hours being trained on DPA and FOI matters. While I can't regurgitate the exact legislative language I can assure you that the rights exist and should be well protected.

Compliance is another matter but that has to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

10:32 / 26.05.04

I said it was intercepted for a reason.

Yeah - sorry - typo. If it was intercepted for a reason, and it clearly was for this case, then that's legitimate no? What I'm saying is SK - no matter how easy it is for this to be done, it has been. If the judge thought it was procured in error or illegally it would be inadmissable.

Whilst guidelines do exist about this sort of thing, not knowing exactly what happens makes it difficult to comment on, and whilst I'd encourage anyone to stand up for their rights, I thinks it's prudent to be well equipped with what actually happened before he goes in guns-a-blazin!

10:58 / 26.05.04

Sorry, I don't understand something. How is my having done some artwork for a printer, using the materials they supplied me to use, a legitimate reason for me to have my emails intercepted something like 18 months later? This was a single, forgettable job that wasn't particularly interesting or even lucrative. I'd comletely forgotten I'd even done it until I got told this story today. I have 2 degrees of separation from the client that supplied the picture to be used. Obviously the courts even figure I have nothing to do with the case because they've never contacted me or asked me to give evidence or tried to prosecute me with anything. So how does this constitute a legitimate reason for surveillance by email interception?

This also, btw, has another side to it for me which contributes to my concern. That is the mention of my having been in England at the time. I'm Australian, the case is happening here in Australia. Last year I was in England but, as a bankrupt, I'm not actually supposed to leave the country. They just forgot to take my passport so I assumed I was still allowed to use it, and did. Thank God the various Australian Government departments are notorious for not bothering to communicate with each other.

12:37 / 26.05.04

Whoa there. Well, I’m not a lawyer, and as I say, without all the facts I can’t really comment on your case specifically. For example I don’t know which emails of yours were audited and/or why. I’m also not aware of the printer's email policy, nor whether you were even using their system or working as a freelancer. However, I’ll try and explain how and why this sort of thing happens. I’m not advocating its use btw – echelon and it’s ilk as well as national laws and corporate rules on email are scary shit.

The first thing to say then I suppose is that beside the countries which share echelon’s capability, (ie, US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and now it seems Ireland), most laws vary depending on the jurisdiction. This can sometimes make it difficult to pin things down and make them subject to certain laws.

The second thing is there is a difference between email monitoring (or auditing), where the email is checked after the actual transmission, and email interception (or filtering), where email is intercepted and checked during transmission. I don’t think your email was intercepted but monitored. Many courts have ruled that checking email after transmission is legal (ie email monitoring), since it is seen as similar to checking through an employee’s paperwork. Generally, now at least, companies are expected to make their email policy known to their employees to prevent these little – ahem – misunderstandings.

So, in your case a court order could have forced the printer company to search through their emails with anything to do with the opal company.

Can’t help with the whole England, Australian bankrupt passport thing. Soz. Although it sounds like that’s the end of it to me, so don’t worry.

11:01 / 27.05.04

Thanks for all that Jub.

I'm going to try the Citizens Advice Bureau to see what's involved in assessing court transcripts that discuss me. I'm doing this more out of morbid curiosity than anything else to be honest. If it's going to be expensive, forget it!

I looked back through my job files today and found the one in question. It was done in the year 2000, so it was 3 years later that someone decided to "intercept" (that is, apparently, the word used in court) my emails, which seems bizarre to me. I didn't actually have any contact, email or otherwise, with the printing company concerned while I was away either so I gather it was just my general correspondence to family and friends that were looked at. There wasn't anything else so it was either those or nothing.

Anyway, thanks to all who had advice or shared my appalledness. If I find out anything interesting I'll let you know!