SBU promises to monitor telecommunications within the law
The Security Service of Ukraine will monitor information carried by various telecommunication systems, doing so in strict accordance with the law, the SBU site read (www.sbu.gov.ua) on St. Valentine Day.
The message further reads that “the globalization of information systems, including the Internet, objectively creates problems for any country.” Considering that modern information systems “cross all borders unimpeded,” this “objectively rules out the application of national laws based on geographic boundaries and traditional notions of sovereignty.” The very existence of international cyberspace “casts doubt on the governments’ ability to control information exchange procedures based on a national legal framework.”
In order to overcome this trend, SBU message continues, the European Parliament passed the ENFOPOL98 law on May 7, 1999, providing for lawful monitoring of telecommunications using progressive technologies. The said decision is binding on all EU members, as well as on those wishing to join the Union. Proceeding from Ukraine’s desire to join the European Union, it is safe to assume that, unless the pertinent state structures of Ukraine arrange for a solution to the problem of monitoring telecommunications, we will be compelled to do so by international precedents and recommendations made without taking into account Ukrainian national specifics and capacities, stresses the SBU.
Monitoring, the message explains, means procedures designed to detect, on lawful grounds, any such data, in a given country’s information space, the contents of which may, directly or otherwise, threaten that country’s economic, military, or other security. SBU “emphasizes in particular” that such monitoring of information “will be carried out in strict accordance with the laws currently in force” and that such monitoring will be possible only if declared necessary by a court of law.
The Day has learned that a “scientific-practical” conference on Information Security in Information and Telecommunication Systems was held last spring and that the monitoring issue was actually agreed upon between the leading providers. Smaller providers noted at the time that their stronger colleagues agreed to the arrangement because this would ease the strain of competition on the market, since far from all companies could afford such monitoring equipment.
SBU explains getting back to the subject by having recently received “a number of inquiries from people in the media” concerning the legal framework of such monitoring and its procedures when using the Internet. This time, however, the monitoring theme appears to have a number of additional factors causing public irritation and no longer over potential problems as was the case last year.
First is the absence of complete and understandable answers to the question about the missing editor of the Internet newspaper Ukrayinska pravda Heorhy Gongadze. The site’s popularity has soared during the past three or four months; the number of visits to other Internet information projects also shows an increase, albeit on a smaller scale, which is evidence that the active part of the population is searching for truth about the situation (especially considering the publicist bias of traditional media outlets) in the Internet, which is still free from control by the authorities.
Under the circumstances, the SBU statement about monitoring could be viewed as the regime’s desire to get even this source of information under control.
Second, after the Melnychenko cassettes, Ukraine has been the scene of a records boom, media and Internet coming up with eavesdropped conversations of the World Bank, Yuliya Tymoshenko, Vyacheslav Pikhovshek. And this in a country where eavesdropping is a no-no. Knowing that there always is a weed in the garden and with all respect due such a respectable service such as the SBU, who can be sure that it will not be tempted to “officially” monitor everybody’s e-mail?
Third, and perhaps most importantly, lack of trust in the nation’s military and security ministries and agencies, especially in the aftermath of events at the turn of the year. Whatever and however good decisions the nation’s new spy-master-in-chief takes, people will most likely examine them under a magnifying glass of suspicion.
“No one is shocked to know that the clandestine agencies have a right to eavesdrop (incidentally, Leonid Kuchma recently signed changes to the law On Search and Detection Work, whereby militia task forces can secretly follow suspects in public places, using photo and video cameras, optical and radio devices, as well as other such gadgets, acting in the line of duty and only if authorized by a public prosecutor). Perhaps in a couple of years Internet visitors will likewise learn the news that similar techniques are practiced there, unless our cloak-and-dagger experts manage to discredit themselves with more shenanigans,” Oleksandr Brams, editor-in- chief of the Runet.Com project, said in an interview with Forum (www.for.com.ua). “However, one can only guess how the SBU will actually exercise this monitoring. In their formal explanations they declare quite lawful actions, but personally I would not try to predict what all this will look like in practice. Considering the overall negative attitude toward the methods used by clandestine agencies, I can foresee that these explanations and intentions will meet with a generally negative public response. Yet this is not likely to change the situation.”
“It is hard to imagine anyone trying to monitor all the Internet activities of even a small firm,” was a comment to Forum by an anonymous worker with an Internet provider. “It would require a staggering amount of data... The activities of a private individuals are more or less easier to follow. That person’s e-mail correspondence could be copied and sites visited tracked down (and the person under study, a model family man to all appearances, might be discovered to be addicted to cybernetic pornography). Electronic payments could be detected, revealing that the subject is in possession of undeclared credit cards or is making transactions via an Internet bank somewhere in an offshore zone. Of course, none of these discoveries can be used as evidence in court (also, getting the number of credit cards through the Internet takes considerable computing capabilities), but they could be very helpful to law enforcement. The SBU’s reference to European legislation is, in my opinion, not quite correct. In the civilized world, special services are combat primarily two computer crimes: theft of credit card numbers and the dissemination of child pornography. Terrorism and drug trafficking are also mentioned, but it is highly unlikely that any clandestine agency would send top secret information through the Internet. In Ukraine, neither of these things is widespread, so it is too early to discuss computer piracy here. Regrettably, the said monitoring will serve political purposes rather than be used in the European context.”
“How badly do we need monitoring to protect the state now that the Internet is erasing national frontiers? Monitoring as such, provided it is exercised in keeping with current legislation, entails no evil,” Vitaly Vorozhbyt, head of the Internet Department at Golden Telekom, told Forum, “but there are many aspects still to be legally ascertained, having everything to do with such monitoring arrangements, like monitoring equipment and its installation. For this reason, I consider such monitoring in Ukraine a bad idea until we work out the required legal framework in collaboration with the Internet community.”
INCIDENTALLY
Over the past two years the number of Internet users has doubled in Ukraine. In December 2000, various sources pointed to 320- 370,000 active users and some 300,000 casual visitors in the Ukrainian segment, with 9,000 web servers, says Oles Shevchuk, head of the State Communications and Information Committee.
