Mission 10: Wanted
Become a counter-terrorism officer, and track down a suspect before it's too late!
You haven't started playing this mission yet - why not give it a go?
Trainee
Multi-tasker
Tap-tap
Panic Over
Special Branch
You're Nicked
Jack Bauer
The laws and government powers in this mission have been described as realistically as possible.
The government has broad powers to investigate your 'data shadow' - all of the information you leave behind on bank statements, online, on your mobile phone, in school records, on CCTV cameras - if they suspect you of being a terrorist. Our everyday activities create a huge amount of information, and the government has powerful tools that it can use to 'mine' this data.
Terrorism Act (2006)
Among other things, this new set of laws describes how and why the police and security services can monitor you and your data. Combined with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), it lays down regulations for how these powers should be used.
The police need to collect a certain amount of evidence to convince a judge to issue a RIPA warrant; they can't get into your password-protected communications, email and logs without one.
This act made several other big changes to existing laws. It extended how long someone can be held without charge, from 14 to 28 days, and created several new offences that were not previously described such as 'fostering hatred', glorifying terrorist acts and - crucially for Max - preparation for terrorist acts, which includes purchasing materials that could be used to construct a bomb.
What's the problem?
Many feel that the threat of terrorism justifies these extended powers, because they think spying on suspected terrorists electronically can help prevent attacks. Others feel that the government is infringing on all of our privacy with too little oversight: it's difficult to challenge the government's decisions because lots of the evidence is private or sensitive, and has to be kept secret. This could lead to abuse: councils using terrorism laws to justify spying on houses with noisy dogs or investigate local car-boot sales, or police detaining people for no good reason.
Still others argue that some aspects of the laws violate people's human rights, and unjustly target ordinary Muslims.
It's scary how easy it is to access 'private' messages with the right tools; the police collected a huge amount of data on Max incredibly quickly, and he hadn't even done anything! But what if Max had been a real terrorist and they had stopped him from planting a bomb?
This is an important debate to have because the data is already out there: our online lives are more public and more detailed than we'd like to think. We just have to decide how all that knowledge should be used.
