Slashdot Mirror
Could Slashdot (Or Other Private Entity) Sue a Spy Agency Like GCHQ Or NSA?
Nerval's Lobster writes "When the GCHQ agency (Britain's equivalent of the National Security Agency) reportedly decided to infiltrate the IT network of Belgian telecommunications firm Belgacom, it relied on a sophisticated version of a man-in-the-middle attack, in which it directed its targets' computers to fake, malware-riddled versions of Slashdot and LinkedIn. If the attack could be proven without a doubt, would the GCHQ—or any similar spy agency engaging in the same sort of behavior—be liable for violating trademarks or copyrights, since a key part of its attack would necessitate the appropriation of intellectual property such as logos and content? We asked someone from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about that, and received a somewhat dispiriting answer. "From a trademark perspective, if a company uses another company's marks/logos to deceive, there may be a trademark claim," said Corynne McSherry, the EFF's Intellectual Property Director. "But it's complicated a bit by two problems: (1) the fact that while there may be confusion, it's not necessarily related to the actual purchase of any goods and services; and (2) multiple TM laws are in play here—for example UK trademark law may have different exceptions and limitations." McSherry also addressed other issues, including governments' doctrine of sovereign immunity."
FYI ciderbrew is referring to an actual event, albeit speculatively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams
BUT - governments are special; essentially you can't sue them unless they agree to allow it. Neither US nor UK governments would allow such a suit to proceed, even if all the facts were publicly known, they would invoke "state secrets" and quash any civil action. The only hope of proceeding in court is to show they violated a law, and even then you'll have a long drawn out battle to prove that you have standing to sue, and to find a judge who would allow the suit to proceed. Lots of people with much stronger cases demonstrating actual harm have had, so far, little or no success in getting the NSA into court and I doubt very much that the UK government is any less skilled at this sort of manipulation of the courts. In then end I doubt anything short of a revolution, or at least the credible threat of one will get any noticeable reform. There are a handful of politicians on both sides of the Atlantic trying to reign these agencies in, sadly they are a minority and unlikely to succeed unless a large wave of public outrage forces a majority of the political class to care about this issue. The best hope is that brave whistle blowers like Snowden will continue to expose the shenanigans of these agencies and that the reporting will be honest enough to get the public to wake up to the profound dangers they pose to all our freedom.
"In the United States, the federal government has sovereign immunity and may not be sued unless it has waived its immunity or consented to suit. The United States has waived sovereign immunity to a limited extent, mainly through the Federal Tort Claims Act, which waives the immunity if a tortious act of a federal employee causes damage, and the Tucker Act, which waives the immunity over claims arising out of contracts to which the federal government is a party."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity#United_States)\
Did you REALLY think there would be another answer?
-Styopa
Well, you have a lot of faith in British law enforcement and security.
No, you'll suddenly decide to kill yourself just before you're going to present important information, like David Kelly. Or you'll commit a minor infraction like jumping a ticket barrier and be shot a few times for "oh he was totally about to set off a bomb", a la Jean Charles de Menezes. Or you'll have a heart attack after being lightly handled by a police officer during a protest, like Ian Tomlinson.