Comment Articles

Who is tracking your Internet use?

Guy Kewney AnchorDesk

Published: 18 Oct 2001 17:23 BST

When things go wrong, usually the only way the world gets to hear about it is when it's too late. Or, when someone who knows what is going on tells us.

Strangely, telling us is regarded as treason, treachery, subversion and grounds for instant dismissal -- in law. If your boss is doing something hugely immoral, and you reveal this to someone outside, your job is over. Unless of course, nobody knows who you are.

So when the Government says it wants to "monitor all Internet traffic" to stop terrorists, we have to ask:

1) will this stop terrorists? and

2) hang on, didn't they want to do this anyway, before there was this terrorist excuse?

Nobody has persuaded me that monitoring my Internet traffic will help catch terrorists. I've spent some time interviewing security experts about this; they say that without doubt, the best way of getting to grips with the current terrorism problem, would be to tighten up the rules against money laundering.

Well, that's not a surprise. Al Capone wasn't captured by people who knocked holes in his beer barrels or who pinned murder charges on him; he was done for tax fraud. And there is little doubt that the wave of high-power terror going on right now is done by people with money; and that without the money, they'd be crippled.

Why isn't the money-laundering loop-hole business being attacked, then?