The DTI Get Nasty

Mail interception, phone tapping

By now TQM Communications was doing pretty well, with quite a number of clients, including a few that were pirate related. Alongside AM/FM, we ran the Caroline Newsline and also sublet lines to Kiss FM, who were using one to run a poll on people's favourite London pirates in their Word magazine. All these were entirely above board, with nothing going on that was in any way illegal. Unfortunately, the Department of Trade and Industry thought otherwise, and apparently had us at the centre of a laughable plot to fund illegal radio stations.

Kiss-FM logo

The first we knew of this was when our Post Office box number was withdrawn. A brief letter arrived from the Post Office informing us that it had been used in breach of the terms and conditions and was therefore being withdrawn. This was a major pain as we were using it for a promotion for another client at the time. Following this back up the chain of command, we got to speak to a person whose job it was to liase between Government departments and the Post Office to enable mail to be intercepted. It turned out that for 2 weeks previously our mail had been opened, though obviously there was nothing in any of it that showed us being involved in anything illegal. He then gave us a contact in the DTI who was responsible for instigating this particular action.

At the same time, the DTI also began putting pressure on Vodafone, our network providers for those particular services. They forwarded on to us several communications from the DTI in which they made it clear that they did not consider our services to be acceptable and requesting Vodafone to terminate them. Vodafone responded to the DTI that they did not have a role of publisher and the case would be better taken up with ourselves. Vodafone were extremely good over this, especially given that they themselves are licensed by the DTI and could be put in a difficult position as a result of it.

As part of the DTI's investigation, which was focussing primarily on Radio Caroline, we then discovered that our telephones were being tapped, alongside those at Caroline's London office and apparently some telephone boxes nearby to there. This was properly confirmed, not just some hunch based on funny noises on the line of the sort heard by CND minions, but through a contact with appropriate access at BT.

Eventually we managed to speak to the relevant DTI person who reported that they were first alerted to us by the fact that half the pirates in London seemed to be giving out one of our numbers for the Kiss FM favourite station line. Kiss found this hilarious as they'd just got their broadcast licence. The DTI also confirmed that they didn't consider the Caroline Newsline service acceptable, but did not it seem want to take us to court over it, just issue veiled threats to people.

At this point we called in our solicitors who wrote a strong letter to the DTI to protest at the action. The DTI eventually conceded that they would not stand in our way should we wish to take another Post Office box number in the future. However, it seemed we couldn't get back the existing one and it would be near impossible to get compensation for the problems caused by its withdrawal.

Vodafone were left alone for a few months, but eventually the DTI began complaints to them again. They responded to these by explaining that they did not consider the matter concerned them and the DTI should take it up with us instead. We were never contacted by the DTI directly for some reason...

In 1991 the problem flared up again as once more they decided to heavily target Radio Caroline. This time there were also problems with a new set of draconian laws concerning the reporting of unlicensed radio. After Vodafone decided they could no longer support us, the plug was finally pulled for good. Oh, and we also lost a British Monomarks post box as a result too, the DTI apparently deciding it didn't like letters being sent to the Newsline via that either.

Had they actually taken us to court then it's highly unlikely that they would have won as what was being done by us was plain and simple news reporting. There wasn't even sufficient material for a complaint to ICSTIS, the body which regulates telephone information services. The DTI were just content to throw their weight around and try and bully people into giving in, relying on the "well, if a Government department says that then it must be true" factor.

Freedom of the Press, dontcha just love it!

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