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GCHQ Does Not Breach Human Rights, Judges Rule

Posted by timothy on from the term-of-art dept.

An anonymous reader writes The current system of UK intelligence collection does not currently breach the European Convention of Human Rights, a panel of judges has ruled. A case claiming various systems of interception by GCHQ constituted a breach had been brought by Amnesty, Privacy International and others. It followed revelations by the former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden about UK and US surveillance practices. But the judges said questions remained about GCHQ's previous activities. Some of the organisations who brought the case, including Amnesty UK and Privacy International, say they intend to appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights.

42 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. One hand washes the other by For+a+Free+Internet · · Score: 1

    Bloody bourgeois hypocrisy to cover yup the crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages.

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    1. Re:One hand washes the other by x0ra · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given that those who make the definition of crimes are the same who are legislating to strip you from your privacy... it's not surprising.

    2. Re:One hand washes the other by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What worries me about the article is that it keeps mentioning the European Convention on Human Rights, but singularly fails to clarify that the IPT is a UK body and not a European one. The whole point of the European court system is to help citizens overturn the decisions of an entrenched national establishment that refuses to police itself. The UK keeps complaining about the EU "interfering" in our laws, but they only do so at the request of British citizens (or less commonly other EU citizens who aren't receiving fair and equal treatment).

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    3. Re:One hand washes the other by epyT-R · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course, the ones doing the spying are the ones who make the laws. There's no problem at all. Move along, comrade.

    4. Re:One hand washes the other by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except that in the UK, Judges have the ability to nullify a law if they consider it onerous or wrong, without being specifically asked to look at the law itself.

      One of the many reasons I trust the UK judicial system - its very independent of the current Government.

    5. Re:One hand washes the other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And whom is appointing the judges?

    6. Re:One hand washes the other by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A non-political body called the Judicial Appointments Commission, the 15 members of which include barristers, judges, normal everyday people and legal professionals. The government have no say in appointments, and have no power over the commission - its completely independent.

    7. Re:One hand washes the other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A non-political body called the Judicial Appointments Commission, the 15 members of which include barristers, judges, normal everyday people and legal professionals. The government have no say in appointments, and have no power over the commission - its completely independent.

      Look at the list of the current commissioners sometime...
      normal everyday people eh?, let me see who the lay members are..

      former senior civil servant, couple of professors, a top businesswoman, a Lieutenant General Sir... the sort of people I meet every day (well, I *used* to when I worked in Camford..).

      oh, for sure, independent..for a given value of independent.

    8. Re:One hand washes the other by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fortunately the NSA can have no dirt on any of the judges, so nothing could go wrong at all.

      Oh...

      Wait...

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    9. Re:One hand washes the other by gbjbaanb · · Score: 2

      I thought it was to overturn the decisions of national establishment and replace them with decisions made by a supranational establishment instead.

      With respect of the human rights laws, they seem to be more of a stick to beat the government with than anything used to really protect human rights - the latest scam from the ambulance chasing human-rights lawyers is the case of a foreign criminal who used the human right to a family life to defend himself from being deported after serving his sentence. Only in this case, he was had threatened to kill his family and was banned from seeing them.

      Is state snooping on communications against our human rights? Is it against the human rights legislation?

    10. Re:One hand washes the other by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just because the law justifies it doesn't mean it's not a crime. Don't make me break out Godwin to prove my point!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re:One hand washes the other by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

      The system is too easily subverted by the government. They made rules to have much of this case in secret, making it impossible to make proper arguments. Judges can only act within the rules set by the government.

      --
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    12. Re:One hand washes the other by craigminah · · Score: 1

      People tend to make emotional responses to issues rather than use reason.

    13. Re:One hand washes the other by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      I thought it was to overturn the decisions of national establishment and replace them with decisions made by a supranational establishment instead.

      The European courts cannot creat their own laws - they can only uphold laws that member states have willingly signed up to.

      Is state snooping on communications against our human rights? Is it against the human rights legislation?

      I think everyone agrees that the East German Stasi were violating people's right to privacy. Do we let the UK away with it just through blind faith that it will never be abused? The security services have always employed the private secrets of innocent, uninvolved civilians to blackmail them into working for them.

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    14. Re:One hand washes the other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Fortunately the NSA can have no dirt on any of the judges, so nothing could go wrong at all.

      Oh...

      Wait...

      This isn't about 'dirt'; this is about the government's left hand telling you it's okay that the right hand keeps spying on people.

      We need this to go to an actual courtroom, not the government lapdog quangos.

    15. Re:One hand washes the other by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Except that in the UK, Judges have the ability to nullify a law if they consider it onerous or wrong, without being specifically asked to look at the law itself.

      As I understand it, they can only nullify illegal laws, ie laws that are incompatible with other legislation. If the judge finds law Y illegal because it breaches law X, parliament can vote to repeal law X and reaffirm law Y, and the deed is done.

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      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    16. Re:One hand washes the other by CanEHdian · · Score: 1

      Didn't you read? It's not a crime. Just because you personally don't like what they do doesn't mean that it's a crime.

      Oh, cool. If it's not a crime, then we all can do what GCHQ does. Belgacom, here we come! Ur box3z r m1ne? How about Sony? Warner? As long as it's not a crime, that is.

      --
      When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
    17. Re:One hand washes the other by CanEHdian · · Score: 1

      Frig, don't know where that url came from; can't leave the computer alone for a minute. http://www.spiegel.de/internat... is the correct one.

      --
      When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
    18. Re:One hand washes the other by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Simply put, this ruling is meaningless, in the sense that we [and the panel of judges] don't actually know what specifically GCHQ is or is not doing now. We only know bits and pieces of things they may have done in the past.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    19. Re:One hand washes the other by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "from your privacy"
      The UK has been looking at messages, letters, communications over generations since WW1. With each new generation the ability to sort and store gets better but the laws to access have always been ready.
      The digital collection sites are in place. The news about collection was always the same from 1914 to 2014.
      The Intelsat collection at Goonhilly Downs in the 1960's.
      From the D-notice affair about thousands of private cables and telegrams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in 9167.
      In the UK, monitoring medium wave tower connections to Ireland. The questions about early Public Key Encryption.
      The Government Technical Assistance Centre, National Technical Assistance Centre. It was always in the press over many years.
      Tempora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      From telegrams, telephone to the digital age the only new story is about how cheap storage is.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    20. Re:One hand washes the other by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      A few million Jews might want to have a word with you if they were still alive.

      There are things that are criminal by definition. Would you consider it ok if whatever constitutional guard exists against violation of personal and intimate room, creating a law that says that any governmental official can at leisure enter your home, search it and take with him whatever he pleases? Because, you know, terrism and that. Make a law and it's ok to do whatever you please?

      Question every law you encounter. Test it whether it may exist, test its validity and its purpose. Blind acceptance of laws is what makes dictatorship possible in the first place.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    21. Re:One hand washes the other by Xest · · Score: 1

      "I thought it was to overturn the decisions of national establishment and replace them with decisions made by a supranational establishment instead."

      That's what it does, the person you're responding to gave the reason as to why that's what it does - to prevent anything like Nazi Germany happening again where the government turned on select minorities of their own people leaving those groups with no one to turn to for justice.

      "With respect of the human rights laws, they seem to be more of a stick to beat the government with than anything used to really protect human rights"

      Completely wrong. They're a stick to beat the government with because the government is repeatedly violating human rights.

      "the latest scam from the ambulance chasing human-rights lawyers is the case of a foreign criminal who used the human right to a family life to defend himself from being deported after serving his sentence. Only in this case, he was had threatened to kill his family and was banned from seeing them."

      Ah, I see, you're a Daily Mail reader. I forgive your confusion about human rights then.

      "Is state snooping on communications against our human rights? Is it against the human rights legislation?"

      If it's done arbitrarily which it is then yes absolutely, it's a violation of the right to a private life. I'm not a threat to the state, I never have been and never will be. There is no legitimate reason for the state to arbitrarily harvest my e-mails and browsing history. The European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights both state this giving exemptions only for the purposes of law enforcement, but given that there's no reason I should be a target of law enforcement then that get out clause is irrelevant, hence why it is a clear breach of my rights.

    22. Re:One hand washes the other by Xest · · Score: 2

      Minor correction - this changed with the introduction of the UK's Supreme Court, whose judges are politically appointed.

      The government of the time created it specifically so that they had a top court they could take advantage of when they found that whole independent judiciary thing inconvenient.

      You're right we've always had a great system and we do still have a great system for the most part, but the UK's Supreme Court has put an end to that to some degree as the government can always just escalate to them when it doesn't get it's own way.

  2. The general population isn't human. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Only the elite are human, and therefore, have human rights.

  3. Remember ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Next time someone invades your privacy in Europe, please remember, they never violate your human rights !

    Captha : regimes

  4. Of course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Odds are that they would also say that if the government was operating worldwide childs molestation rings for profit.

    1. Re:Of course by x0ra · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Of course, governments just give themselves the exclusivity of crimes. Kidnapping, assault, theft, murder, torture... Though, they rename the action in the process, imprisonment, "public safety", taxes, war...

    2. Re:Of course by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      As you have just demonstrated, moral relativism can lead to silly arguments. Imprisonment equals "kidnapping"? Only if there is no justice, and that is only one of many considerations you toss.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    3. Re:Of course by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      Prisons are filled with drug offenders, hard to see what justice has to do with it. It's about the convenience of the state, even in basic cases like murder, innocent people are grabbed so that the case can be closed. And of course if you are considered an enemy of the state it follows no constraints

    4. Re:Of course by x0ra · · Score: 1

      kidnap kidnap/ verb: gerund or present participle: kidnapping take (someone) away illegally by force, typically to obtain a ransom.

      In other words, law is giving the government leeway to do what would not be moral to do in to do in the general case. Who's responsible to pass laws ? Government. This is a blatant conflict of interest. Don't talk to me about "democracy", we're merely given the choice every few years to choose our dictator.

    5. Re:Of course by x0ra · · Score: 1

      Eg Snowden, Manning...

    6. Re:Of course by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      Although your handle is "misexistentialist" your understanding seems to be based on Dada.

      It's all pretty much just random, eh?

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    7. Re:Of course by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      Manning: Justice was served.
      Snowden: Like the case of the accused rapist Assange justice is denied as he is a fugitive.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  5. Surprise, suprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They would say that wouldn't they. Nothing to worry about, move along now sir.

  6. Re:SHUT THE FRACK UP, SLASHDOT! by epyT-R · · Score: 3, Informative

    You'd think that the average slashdot user knows how to install adblockplus...

  7. Re:SHUT THE FRACK UP, SLASHDOT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why does Slashdot never fix this problem? It's not the first time when I hear people being riled up by intrusive ads over here, especially ones which play audio.

    Sometimes this website feels like a ghost ship without anyone in control. :-O

  8. Merkel is a terrorist?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Well that's a nonsense ruling, Merkel and EU Parliament were spied on, and those targets are political not national security targets. and the data is given to the NSA, this tribunal does not cover the NSA and it cannot vouch or enforce anything the NSA does with that data, clearly if politicians are spied on, then this data is misused.

    Any "No-spy" agreement between the UK, US and other 5 eyes, does not extend to Europe yet the privacy right covers Europeans.

    Likewise claiming the data is proportionate, when GCHQ grabs *all* data is simply not possible, the tribunal seems to think if you grab the data and don't look at it (even though you're data mining it) then that's not intercepting the data. Silly.

    The tribunal hints at problems in the past, but they're also hinting at the limits of their ruling.

    No matter, this Kangaroo ruling is expected, and its necessary to go through this before you can go to the higher courts.

  9. Re:SHUT THE FRACK UP, SLASHDOT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Thank you for mention, adblockplus - i never heard of this before now. I am so pissed off that Slashdot does this - we wanted to be different from the so-common pigs on the Web. I guess not.

  10. Re:One hand washing -- offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So logically if the appointing person is female:

    she appointed the judges -> who appointed the judges?
    the judges will be appointed by her -> by whor will the judges be appointed?

    Somehow this doesn't make sense.

  11. Perfidious Albion... by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 1

    There is no hope that anyone there can effect any change, as with the US.

    Refuse to hire ex-GCHQ or NSA employees. Make sure they know they're personally accountable for this.

  12. Expansion of Rights by JimSadler · · Score: 2

    To be free of being a target of crime is also a reasonable human expectation or right. To live in a society that has a reasonable degree of order and regular function might also be described as a human right. To expect the full benefit of medical technology, food and housing as well as legal representation in both civil and criminal issues is also esential. Not to be lied to by our employees that we call "the government" is also vital. How is it that most of these areas only get lip service and any progress is astoundingly slow? Is it reasonable for veterans not to get benefits the moment they are discharged from duty? How can a man be held in a jail for four years awaiting trial? How is it that arrests that lead to not guilty verdicts do not compel government to compensate the person subjected to that false arrest?

  13. Wrong headline. by jcr · · Score: 4, Informative

    It should have read "government lawyers help spies lie about violating innocent people's privacy rights."

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."