Government change of heart over RIP - a pat on the back

The government's shelving of plans to increase its and certain agencies' rights to snoop on all manner of private communications is a victory for right-minded citizens who have petitioned their MPs well (http://www.silicon.com/a54014 ).

Home Secretary David Blunkett this week withdrew proposals which may now be left on the shelf indefinitely. We are pleased that advice, concerns and arguments from various quarters made it through to him and his staff. For a government that all too often seems to botch IT initiatives, it has typically operated an effective firewall, blocking this type of dialogue.

Campaigning group the Foundation for Information Policy Research told silicon.com it is "very pleased" with the U-turn, but this morning an overnight email from the Stand team, who have long protested Draconian surveillance, caught our eye. To quote verbatim from their email:

"People have greater access to the levers of government than they think. Making contact is important. The volunteers at Stand and FaxYourMP are almost pathologically cynical, but we're regularly taken aback by how positively MPs, editors, civil servants and peers of the realm respond to a personal contact by intelligent and reasonable citizens. It's almost as if they're flattered by the attention. It's almost as if they're touched anyone even cares about what they do.

"At the beginning of this campaign - oh, almost a week ago now - many people (from professional lobbyists to anonymous web forum posters) told us that it was futile to encourage others to make a fuss. It was too late; that delegated legislation would be railroaded through; that no-one cared about privacy issues; that U-turns never happen."

The email goes on to note this is only one battle, that there are many others out there in the war - like those over the EU's Copyright Directive and Data Protection orders - not looking so good. But it ends with a word of encouragement:

"But we thought it was worth saying that you won. And the next time you're talking to someone about these issues, and someone says 'What's the point?' - well, you now may now point at yourself, and mention how you got the government to blink."

Hats off to all the people who emailed, faxed, picked up the phone or got people involved over a pint in the pub, and hats off to Stand for eloquently trumpeting this win. Governments, even those with huge majorities, can be swayed.