No Privacy Right in UK ?

Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing 
                      and wish there were more of it. 
 
                                        --Welcome to cypherpunks 
 
 
 
Friend, 
 
 
11 16 95 The Electronic Telegraph runs a newsstory headed 
 
   Doorstep polish researcher was whiplash injuries spy 
 
 
Here are excerpts from the newsstory: 
 
   Miss [Natalie] Goldner had been hurt when a car in which 
   she was a passenger was hit from behind in April 1988, 
   and she was forced to leave her video library job. 
 
   Shortly after the accident, she started a claim for compen- 
   sation and future loss of earnings against the Royal Insur- 
   ance Company. 
 
   ...Margot Christie...was working for the Hampshire Detec- 
   tive Agency when she went to Miss Goldner's house in Octo- 
   ber 1991. 
 
Christie posed as a market researcher. 
 
   It was only when a compensation claim reached court that 
   Miss Goldner realised the "researcher" was a private de- 
   tective hired to discover the extent of her injuries. 

   In a report which was due to go before the court, Mrs Chris- 
   tie said she had asked Miss Goldner to test some polish 
   and window cleaner. 
   
   [Christie] returned 11 days later.  "I asked the plaintiff 
   if the polish had given a good shine and if she had rubbed 
   hard. The plaintiff said 'Yes I did, it didn't smear at all'." 
 
Natalie lives with her mother. 
 
   "I felt as though we had been burgled.  I felt violated.  We 
   were so worried afterwards that we just didn't trust anyone 
   who turned up at our door. 
 
   "She asked lots of questions about who did the housework 
   in our house.  We were just chatting away and I had no idea 
   she was there to spy on me." 
 
Natalie settled out of court. 
 
   In September, she accepted a 20,000 [pound] settlement after 
   one day of a planned four-day court hearing. 
 
   She is to lodge a complaint with the Association of British 
   Investigators.... 
 
Fortunately, the Daily Telegraph publicized the case.  The news- 
story points out: 
 
   A spokesman for Liberty, the civil rights group, said:  "There 
   is no right to personal privacy in Britain and so it [invasion 
   of privacy by deception] is not against the law." 
 
 
Cordially, 
 
Jim 
 
 
 
NOTE.  The Electronic Telegraph can be accessed at 
 
                 http://www.telegraph.co.uk 
 
 
       The online filename of the above newsstory is: 
 
                        nspys16.html

Could you please explain what this has to do with cryptography?

"James M. Cobb" writes:
>  
> 11 16 95 The Electronic Telegraph runs a newsstory headed 
>  
>    Doorstep polish researcher was whiplash injuries spy 
>

Perry, 
 
 
Thanks for your inquiry.  The post "No Privacy Right in UK ?" 
is closely related to cryptography in at least three ways. 
 
 
                           (1) 
 
Cryptography is a means to accomplish an end: privacy. That's 
why the epigraph 
 
         Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing
             and wish there were more of it 
 
heads up the post, "No Privacy Right in UK ?" 
 
 
                           (2) 
 
Farther, the case discussed in the post was a prosaic example 
of invasion of privacy by deception.  That the case is ordinary, 
and therefore liable to be lost sight of, makes it all the more 
significant that the largest London daily publicized it; and did 
so in a sympathetic manner.  That helps us here in the United 
States to propagate the importance of the right to privacy.  Cy- 
pherpunks --poetic defenders of privacy (see the epigraph)-- can 
reciprocate the favor by bringing it to people's attention. 
   
Cryptography is not the only means of reversing deceptive inva- 
sions of privacy.  But it is peculiarly suitable for reversing 
some such invasions because it uses deception to ensure, rather 
than invade, privacy.  Thus it can provide a model for the so- 
called prosaic cases: the sting.  For the sting also is designed 
to deceive deceivers, criminal or otherwise.  Privacy is, in part, 
protection from victimization. 
 
 
                           (3) 
 
Further, Clinton attended an elite university in the UK.  Can you 
imagine what notions he may have found attractive there?  Notions 
that can be "encoded" to make them attractive to us here in the 
States; then, if we buy into them, can be "decoded" and...applied! 
 
 
Cordially, 
 
Jim 
 
 
 
INCLOSURE: 
 
On Fri, 17 Nov 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

 
 Could you please explain what this has to do with cryptography?
 
 "James M. Cobb" writes:
  
  11 16 95 The Electronic Telegraph runs a newsstory headed 
  
    Doorstep polish researcher was whiplash injuries spy

"James M. Cobb" writes:
> Thanks for your inquiry.  The post "No Privacy Right in UK ?" 
> is closely related to cryptography in at least three ways. 

Actually, I was being rhetorical. It was an inappropriate posting.

> Cryptography is a means to accomplish an end: privacy.

Thats true, but it isn't a means to keep private investigators from
noticing that insurance cheats are perfectly healthy when they claim
to be horribly incapacitiated, which was what the article was about.

> Farther, the case discussed in the post was a prosaic example 
> of invasion of privacy by deception.

Actually, it was a prosaic example of the lengths to which human
stupidity is taken in our court systems. I'm reminded of the rule that
says you can't put a boobytrap in your home -- after all, a person
breaking and entering could injure themselves with it.

It has nothing to do with cryptography, though.

> Further, Clinton attended an elite university in the UK.  Can you 
> imagine what notions he may have found attractive there?

So what. Nothing to do with cryptography.

Take this elsewhere, I say.

Perry