iii.
The workload for the intelligence and law enforcement agencies in
preserving and presenting intercept product as evidence would be very
severe indeed, and very expensive, and would distract them from the
work which they should be doing, and also from the work they are
actually doing, so greatly reducing as opposed to increasing the value
of the intercept. This would be counter-productive. I give one example.
In a recent case a Court felt it had to order that 16,000 hours of
eavesdropping (not intercept) material must be transcribed at the
request of the Defence. I believe that the cost was of the order of £1.9
million. The work and cost in intercept cases would be very great
indeed, and quite disproportionate to any perceived advantage. This
may explain why some who tend to act on behalf of defendants in
terrorist and serious criminal cases appear to be supporting the concept
of a change in the law.
iv.
Criminals and terrorists do not speak in a language which is readily
comprehensible to juries, even if their native language is English.
Many conversations are in foreign languages or slang. In those that are
not, they use their own particular language. In every case interpreters
and translators would be required. In many languages and dialects
there are very few capable of translating and interpreting. I give one
example. In an intercept case which I saw recently, the participants
were speaking in a tongue which is spoken by significantly less than
1000 people in the world.
v.
Some of those who favour a change in the law take the view that if the
terrorist or criminal makes a clear confession in a telephone
conversation, then why should it not be admissible as evidence. That is
an understandable point of view and the converse may at first sight
seem to be counter-intuitive. However real life is not so simple as that
and criminals and terrorists do not behave like that. Apart from the
matters that I have already referred to, I know from years of
experience, particularly when dealing with foreign languages that
interpreters and translators very rarely agree upon the meaning of
anything, and there is never any difficulty in finding one interpreter
who will disagree with another.
vi.
The Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are very important in
this process and their staff do essential work. They are very cooperative and dedicated. I talk to them regularly and they are totally
opposed to the concept of intercept being admissible in Court. The
present regime provides a high degree of protection to the CSPs and
particularly to those members of their staff who work in this sensitive
field, and their strong co-operation referred to could easily be
undermined. Here again, I think that it is essential for people holding
views on this subject to talk to the CSPs, and to listen to what they say,
and understand the basis of their strong opposition to any change in the
present law.
vii. The problems with the criminal process. I have made some reference
to these, with examples, above. Having looked at this problem with
great care, it is abundantly clear to me that it would be exceedingly
difficult to prove that a conversation is taking place between A and B.
The warrants would have to be proved. How is the material received at
source? How is it transferred to the Agencies? How is it transcribed?
What does it mean? Lawyers will inevitably challenge every
connection and every issue, because that is their job. Admitting
intercept evidence would take a very long time, and would greatly
increase the length of already over-long trials and the expense
involved. These problems are going to increase in the future because
of the huge changes taking place in telecommunications technology as
CSPs change to internet protocol networks. There is a real danger of
criminal trials being aborted. I know that work has been done in an
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