UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/06/gchq-mass-internet-surveillance-unlawful-court-nsa

by owlmusic • 11 years ago

296 62 11 years ago

zirkonit• 11 years ago

“was unlawful”, “is unlawful” and “will be unlawful”.

It will not stop just because of the court decision. The rule of law is for mere mortals, and not the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies, unfortunately.

peteretep7• 11 years ago

The UK has a pretty good track record of nobody being above the law.

arethuza2• 11 years ago

Lets see what happens to Tony Blair after the Chilcot inquiry report is published:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/07/tony-bl...

SideburnsOfDoom• 11 years ago

Oh, really? http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec/15/saudiarabia.armstr...

mike_hearn• 11 years ago

This ruling is issued by a kangaroo court that isn't like a normal court, and the "law" in this case says that GCHQ can do pretty much whatever it likes. So I'm afraid this stuff moved outside the realm of law and democracy a long time ago.

junto2• 11 years ago

Whilst I applaud the ruling, I doubt it will make much of difference. The British government simply uses extensions to the "temporary" Terrorism Act 2000 and its modifications in 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2008 and/or RIPA.

I'm getting a bit tired of politicians standing up in the House of Common's, stating we need a "temporary" act to reduce liberty and privacy under the guise of terrorism, only to extend the rulings indefinitely. It's bullshit.

Also, with regards to RIPA, the section related to "Use of communication data" requires only "senior member of that authority", whilst wire taps and reading post requires authorisation from "Warrant from Home Secretary or Cabinet Secretary for Justice". The first one should also move under this authority and blanket surveillance should be banned.

Conspiracy theorist me says we should expect another "act of terrorism" on the UK mainland. This government needs to bolster its control, as they did in Australia, France and Canada. After every attack, the direct effect is that politicians start looking for ways to spin that into invasions of privacy and liberty. Every god damn time.

P.S. Interestingly, Germany is one of the few large European nations with troops in "Muslim lands", that has to date not had a major terrorist incident. They have a large Muslim population, which although largely very moderate and westernised, do have a minority of people who are preaching extremism. Also, many of the terrorist cells (including 9/11) have originated, or passed through Germany.

matthewmacleod• 11 years ago

I appreciate that you prefixed this, but are you really implying that the recent attacks in France were planned by the government? Or that the 7/7 bombings in London were?

That really dilutes the value of the other points you make – which I do agree with.

KwanEsq• 11 years ago

Whilst I am not endorsing the view, I would like to point out that Operation Northwoods–style false‐flag attacks are not a necessary reading of the grandparent's post. It would also be satisfied by the government/security services being aware of a planned attack by actual criminals, and simply letting it happen rather than preventing it as would otherwise be done.

simi_• 11 years ago

Conspiracy theories are bullshit 99% of the time, but you must be an idiot to think it's difficult to stage such a thing. Naivety is not a very cute trait in adults (but probably not as dangerous as chemtrail-type stupidity).

spiritplumber• 11 years ago

A more diluted version of this conspiracy theory is that there is a roughly constant supply of crazies who want to blow stuff up, that most of them are easy to catch, and that on occasion security agencies let one succeed so that they can get favorable-to-them legislation to happen.

aw3c2• 11 years ago

Maybe not planned, but the idea that they were "tolerated" because they promoted the agenda for a reasonably low cost seems not too far fetched. grabs tinfoil

socksy2• 11 years ago

It's not so much that such an attack would be created by the government (which if that's what GP is saying, then I utterly agree with you). It's more what's done after the attack — painting it as a terrorist attack in the first place, then arguing that it like all terrorist attacks could have been prevented if intelligence were more powerful, etc.

I found it very interesting recently that the BBC has decided to stop using the word "terrorism" to report these attacks[1], and I hope that this will lead to a more nuanced argument over different events.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-bbc-has-just...

thatsjustcrazy2• 11 years ago

Guess you've never heard of Operation Gladio. Yes, these things have happened and will continue to happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

PlzSnow4• 11 years ago

"are you really implying that the recent attacks in France were planned by the government? Or that the 7/7 bombings in London were?"

Welcome to Hacker New, where a sizeable proportion of the readership actually believe this stuff. Also, the NSA read and store everything you do on the Internet.

However, the discussions on technology issues are of a very high standard, which is why many of us are here.

peteretep7• 11 years ago

There is every difference in the world between an agency being able to do what it wants, and politicians needing to stand up and make it so, and explain themselves to their constituents. I'm sorry you don't see that

higherpurpose• 11 years ago

Such rules will need to be accompanied by consequences for those doing it. A ruling without enforcement isn't worth much. That said, this is a great, and perhaps quite surprising ruling, considering it's a secret Court.

peteretep7• 11 years ago

It doesn't strike me as particularly surprising. Judges have secrets they don't want spooks reading, too.

jackgavigan• 11 years ago

So, one of the key things about this ruling is that it declares "that prior to the disclosures made and referred to in the Tribunal’s Judgment of 5 December 2014, the regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by US authorities pursuant to Prism and/or (on the Claimants’ case) Upstream, contravened Articles 8 or 10 ECHR".[1]

ECHR refers to the European Convention on Human Rights[2]. Article 8 covers privacy. Article 10 covers freedom of expression.

The Human Rights Act 1998 declares that "It is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right"[3] (and GCHQ is classified as a public authority) but I'm not aware of any legislation that would classify such actions as a crime. Therefore, while monetary damages may be awarded[4], it seems unlikely that anyone could be held personally accountable (in the sense of being charged with a crime).

Ironically, the Home Office just announced a public consultation on the draft codes of practice for interception of communications and "equipment interference" (which covers hacking).[4]

1: http://www.ipt-uk.com/docs/Liberty_Ors_Judgment_6Feb15.pdf

2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Ri...

3: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/section/6

4: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/section/8

5: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/interception-of-...

peteretep7• 11 years ago

I may be alone here, but while I don't always agree with the laws of the country, I want the government, army, police, and civil service to be acting inside those laws.

harkyns_castle• 11 years ago

I think we've gone far beyond what anyone wants. I'm starting to be a bit surprised by the good news though, I'll take what I can get.

* Until such time as we can fix this mess.

7952• 11 years ago

I get the impression that the agencies actually do want to act legally. And the government go to great efforts to make sure that these kind of actions are legallised after the fact. I wouldn't be suprised if this ruling is used as an excuse to leave the ECHR.

Personally I think it is better to have tight laws that are sometimes broken than loose laws that authorize anything. I understand that there are situations where agents may have to break the law and should have a reasonable defence against prosecution (akin to self defence). Instead we get this world in which these grey areas are ignored to the detriment of everyone.

DanBC3• 11 years ago

I'm curious about the careful wording they used: this is carefully referring to data gathered by Americans[1] and used by GCHQ, and not to data gathered by GCHQ.

I understand that GCHQ, while not admitting to the existence of TEMPORA in public, is being careful with it, providing in-house lawyers for their staff to operate within what they think the law says.

So this ruling only changes the "We spy on your citizens; you spy on ours" work-around to various laws making it hard to spy on your own citizens. Since the English laws are pretty clear and should be easy enough for GCHQ to work with it's not much change on our side.

ommunist• 11 years ago

So, like @higherpurpose pointed out - ruling without enforcement is nothing in this case.

I seriously doubt GCHQ will transform their Cornwall facility into a tourist attraction like Bletchley Park, after NSA recently invested in it such fancy amounts of monies.

fauigerzigerk• 11 years ago

It is important to fight surveillance in the courts, but as they keep making ever more draconian and broad surveillance laws it will eventually become pointless. At the end of the day, this is a political question.

I'm not quite sure what we're dealing with here politically. I wonder whether this extent of surveillance is simply the will of the poeple or whether democracy has been subverted by a power hungry security aparatus.

justcommenting• 11 years ago

I hope other governments will take notice of this ruling in considering political asylum for the person who blew the whistle to expose these human rights violations on a massive scale.

Allower• 11 years ago

Terrible and completely misleading headline. The court ruled that the SHARING of surveillance data with NSA was unlawful until this past December. Its another meaningless verdict that effectively supports the gross invasion of individual privacy while claiming to oppose it.

lifeisstillgood• 11 years ago

So roughly speaking, the US could spy on the UK but when they shared the data with the UK it was illegal for the UK authorities to "solicit, receive, store and transmit" that data.

However they previously had said that the new process of sharing data was now legal. In order to comply with the law GCHQ and the NSA have ... Made public the fact they are sharing information and how much.

Yeah, please take that one to a higher court and decide not on narrow technicalities but should we be doing this at all?

I am rather proud of Liberty (who I used to work for (IT and campaigns it's fun!) - it took a long time to get here.

GordonS• 11 years ago

And will it stop? ... not a chance

Will anyone be held accountable and brought to justice? ... not a chance

ed_blackburn• 11 years ago

One presumes that the court doesn't deems there's been a serious criminal action here. More the status quo isn't legal. I'd like to know if this means the current actions will stop. When? If the government will fight it. Or legislate around it? There needs to be an official response from someone will real authority. It's been judged as illegal...so what next?

ch2152• 11 years ago

The way this same story has been spun by the BBC worries me.

You'd think the news line has to be, as the Guardian and others are reporting, GCHQ mass Internet surveillance was 'unlawful'.

The Beeb did go with 'unlawful' in their original headline but the story has since been watered down with sheer wordiness.

'Unlawlful' now appears in the tenth paragraph, below an analysis panel, and is only then included in a quotation from a campaign group.

Nowhere in the article does the BBC succinctly say a tribunal held that GCHQ breached human rights law. It simply says the agency is now complaint (without saying that it was not for seven years).

To me at least, it seems the BBC is becoming less of a public-service broadcaster and more of a state one.

-- GCHQ censured over sharing of internet surveillance data with US http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31164451

appleflaxen• 11 years ago

That's a great point.

About the only thing you can do is call them on it in social media; tell them you are paying attention:

  @BBC why won't you use the word "illegal" or "unlawful" in the headline? 
  This is far bigger than censure.

arca_vorago• 11 years ago

I borrowed this and tweeted it. Attributed to you.

ch2152• 11 years ago

I'm going to _try_ to stop reading BBC News instead.

It won't be easy because I've been using it for years. I like the site's navigation and readability but the content is often lacking given their resources.

They did something similar with the Prince Andrew story, reporting his "emphatic" denials before mentioning the allegations.

Clearly, he is innocent until proven guilty. However, the Beeb regularly seems eager to jump to the defense of the powerful rather than scrutinise.

I'm veering way off-topic now but this morning they had a big, brash, bullshit "breaking news" banner for a piece about a tennis player's wedding date.

That may be of interest to the public but it's not in the public interest. Too often the BBC conflates the two as meaning the same thing.

UVB-76• 11 years ago

Diffs: http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-3...

pjc50• 11 years ago

Even worse, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30345801 "GCHQ does not breach human rights, judges rule". This is ridiculous and insulting.

pwr22• 11 years ago

It looks like the article was rewritten to focus more what what is happening now than what happened in the past. It doesn't look particularly like underhandedness to me

MLR• 11 years ago

Have you read the judgement?

It quite literally says they contravened articles 8 or 10 of the ECHR but now comply.

With a quick read up on the ECHR it seems that the judgements made are binding but, since according to the judgement they are now compliant, it doesn't seem like any action will be taken.

Again this is from a view of complete ignorance of the law, but censure seems like the most appropriate word in this case.

rcthompson• 11 years ago

"... for seven years." Also probably all the other years.

UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

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