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UK Government Admits Intelligence Services Allowed To Break Into Any System
An anonymous reader writes Recently, Techdirt noted that the FBI may soon have permission to break into computers anywhere on the planet. It will come as no surprise to learn that the U.S.'s partner in crime, the UK, granted similar powers to its own intelligence services some time back. What's more unexpected is that it has now publicly said as much, as Privacy International explains: "The British Government has admitted its intelligence services have the broad power to hack into personal phones, computers, and communications networks, and claims they are legally justified to hack anyone, anywhere in the world, even if the target is not a threat to national security nor suspected of any crime." That important admission was made in what the UK government calls its "Open Response" to court cases started last year against GCHQ.
Does it matter if the are allowed to or not? They would do it anyways. I mean, it's not like it being illegal has ever stopped them before.
+1 insightful
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
even if the target is not a threat to national security nor suspected of any crime
In an intelligent society that isn't constantly drooling over celebrities, we wouldn't have these morons doing that.
Wouldn't it be covered in the law for anyone to read if this were the case? Or are there some secret laws, or non-obvious interpretations of the law?
Anyway, it's pretty ballsy of them to say they're legally entitled to do so in all foreign nations!
Twinstiq, game news
We should let them "break" in (since we could never stop them) but at the same time we (and companies) should be able to do all we can to prevent hackers from breaking in to get it. It should not be against the law to encrypt any communications and data with passwords. You should never have to give your own password even under a court order because you can genually forget it and the data could truly be of no consequence. If they can't find it because I didn't write it down or they can't break it then too bad.
Apart from some meaningless bluster, there has been absolutely no negative impact on intelligence services for spying on citizens.
So why should they not simply say what they are doing, when there are no repercussions for doing so?
It's not like anyone is going to stop using computers, they will just maintain the happy illusion that no-one is spying on them...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is this what " Western Democracy " supposed to mean?
The United States of America and Great Britain, the two shining examples of Western Democracy, the two nations who go around the world criticizing other countries' 'human right abuses' --- themselves turn out to be nothing but motherfucking police states !
Or should the concept of " Western Democracy " supposed to be an inane joke?
Please wake up and smell the fucking coffee, bro !
The laws were written not to serve the public --- they were written to serve the interests of the Elites
Keeps you free from what? The tyranny of an oppressive government?
Legal or not they're going to do it anyway. At least if it's legal it'll save time and money that would have been spent in court.
If somebody could point to some line that Asad's Syria (or whoever you perceive to be an enemy), refused to cross, but the CIA/NSA/GCHQ did...
Well I'd be very surprised.
I'm British. I like my "western, secular, demcocracy"
But then our governments have shown no sign of respecting any limits either.
I think we find ourselves today existing in a world where every power, will do whatever it can, and answers to nobody. I don't like it, I've seen the 'revelations' but none of us seem to have stepped up and prosecuted any hypocrisy.
Defending something should come with a cost.
Defending is supposed to be about making a stand.
If your justify your defending by ripping up your own rules, then you've tainted yourself forevermore.
The license to peek.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
That doesn't make it legal, especially not world wide. If they don't recognize the sovereignty and the law of other countries, then there will be war over this. Whether that can be restricted to the network remains to be seen. The USA have already declared that they would count "cyber attacks" against them as acts of war which would also justify a response with conventional weapons. The people who decide these things probably can't even set up their own mail client, but somehow they feel justified to let their psychopath hackers loose on the net to turn it into a war zone, and unless they're extremely lucky, cause real world escalations. These people need to be removed from office.
Spying on another country has always been "illegal" in the country that is the target. It's "spying". A sovereign state doesn't have to follow the laws of another country.
The deeper (and IMHO more interesting) question is "Are you permitted to have secrets from your own government?"
It's up to you and your government to protect yourself from other governments. But what about your own? That's the [real] question we've been debating for the last several years (i.e. AS ... After Snowden).
It looks like the burden of proof for combat actions will always exceed the proof that can be obtained from computer forensics.
Further, the likelihood of taking action is inversely proportional to the capabilities of the enemy. The US (for example) has no issue with bombing a third-world country, but would not take combat actions against Russia or China for cyber-crime. For all anyone knows, the evidence was entered in emacs by Spooks at the CIA to make it look like it was China. That's completely different than (for example) capturing a US spy ship (North Korea in the 60's).
I'll really start to worry if or when I am legally required to install a backdoor onto my network and computers in order to get any online connectivity at all.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Well, if they don't get caught, it's probably alright. Nevermind then. I'm sure all those other countries will see it the same way.
Surveillance makes a government and its large complicit corporations very wealthy and delivers them significant power and control over anyone who can add to their wealth and/or power. It also delivers them the ability to easily coverup any crimes they may commit. It has been going on forever and sadly they are not about to stop for the likes of you and me!
May I kindly ask the agencies to use Evil Bit so that I can identify lawful attempts to hack my system? I don't want to accidentally hack the agency in the heat of furious self-defense efforts.
By us looking the other way and not demanding it to stop we are giving the tyrants what they need the most, a willing population.
Freedom requires the strength to fight back, to say no more.
(.)-(.)
The truth about these agencies is bad. There is no need, and I would say it is harmful, to so distort their statements as to be lying about what they said. This story only harms whatever credibility Privacy International may have had.
What the court response actually said is that a court can grant a search warrant in a criminal case, not just a national a security related case. Okay, so what is the process for such warrants and under what conditions are they granted? What limitations are put on those warrants? What are the consequences for proceeding without a warrant or beyond a warrant? Those are very important questions, which need to be addressed. Pretending those questions don't exist and falsely claiming "they said they can spy on anyone they want, any time they want" is HARMFUL to privacy. A guaranteed way to always lose a fight is by misunderstanding what the fight is. PI has grossly misstated what we're fighting and done is all a disservice in doing so.
I can't figure out if you are a moron and a troll, or just a phenomenal moron
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The US and the UK have defined the playing field such that every other government will decree it is their sovereign right to break into any system.
And to claim otherwise if a steaming pile of shit.
And now I believe the black hat hackers should more or less just go scorched earth.
If there's no system left, there's no evidence. Just burn it on your way out.
And the rest of the world will be stuck in the middle, and our own governments will have made it impossible for us to have any security.
Fucking morons.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It may not be forbidden by law for them to do so, that doesn't make it fine and permissible. I will still fight it with any means possible.
What's really scary about this development is that we used to have laws that had a general consensus in the population. Of course, there have been rather unpopular laws, but in the end, people would understand that they're necessary. I mean, you may not like speed limits, but you understand why they exist. And you might not like tax laws but it's understandable that they have to be.
So far, laws that had the main function of protecting the government from their own population were the hallmark of dictatorships and other oppressive regimes. I guess we're moving there.
And don't gimme that "we're free, you can move away if you want". The only reason for this is that we don't have a "west" we could flee to.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I see that all the discussion is centered around "them" taking information. Why not drop some incriminating "evidence" while they are at it?
... kill(-1, SIGKILL)
"Apart from some meaningless bluster, there has been absolutely no negative impact on intelligence services for spying on citizens."
How do you know??
claims they are legally justified to hack anyone, anywhere in the world,
GCHQ/FBI personnel had better not travel abroad anywhere. If some country takes issue with their servers being hacked, the prison sentence could be rather long.
Have gnu, will travel.
"Recently, both the FBI and GCHQ gained powers to shoot anyone in this planet for any reason whatsoever. Negotiations in the UN did resolve any issues as all the countries in the world partially gave up their sovereignty over the lives of their citizens. Organizations such as Don't Kill Me Bro International criticized the resolution, only to be shot at the following Monday, during office hours, before tea time."
You understand their claim there, that the law requires authorization for 'intelligence targets', is actually a defacto approval to spy without authority for anyone not deemed an 'intelligence target'.
As if the law is there to simply add a permission requirement for some specific target!
There was never any such blanket permission law,, they claim its their PROCEDURE, as if they don't need a law to enable it.
It's obviously not a sustainable position in court, so expect them to try to prevent the courts from ever ruling on it. They're a rogue agency, the NSA 800,000 people and contractors know what GCHQ is doing, but most of Parliament is kept in the dark without sufficient security clearance. Keeping GCHQ loyal to the US Generals rather than the elected politicians.
e.g. GCHQ spys on EU politicians for the US in trade agreements. The US gets a better deal, the UK and Europe get a worse deal, thus GCHQ undermines their own country.
Traitors.
Fundamentally, a fair trial and an honest defense is history - all bets off.
Magna Carta , constitution - begone with these pesky artifacts of history - and fry the accused.
US Senators need not feel complacent - all their shit is up on the block too - for the next Hoover like person to quietly beat them into submission.
Banks and hedge funds: Your asses are grassed too - imagine if the 'Agency' creamed off your trades. Yeah, no political donations this time, till you work out acceptable limits.
What they are claiming that if NO interception warrant is issued then they can do it anyway. That their DEFAULT right is to hack equipment.
"Buried deep within the document, Government lawyers claim that while the intelligence services require authorisation to hack into the computer and mobile phones of "intelligence targets", GCHQ is equally permitted to break into computers anywhere in the world even if they are not connected to a crime or a threat to national security."
See RIPA gives them permission for intelligence targets, and they're claiming that for non-intelligence target this means they don't need permission. So they broke UK law.
EU Laws normally have a get out of 'national security' and by admitting they target people not connected to 'national security' they null that get out.
No, this is a rogue agency breaking UK law and acting against UK interests.
So here in the UK it's a *bad* thing (and rightly so) for newspapers to hack people's phones for juicy shit to help sell their papers, but it's a *good* thing (and not rightly so) for the government to hack anybody's phones because they feel like it. One rule for the powerful and fuck everybody else.
I would love to hear about the UK government hacking US telecoms - wouldn't that be classed as an act of war by the US? How's that special relationship working out now, eh? (Special as in "bend over, I'm coming in dry, bitch!") If it becomes legal for one country, it becomes "legal" for all countries and bollocks to any government that complains about the free-for-all that ensues.
There's a book that predicted this ... and further extensions of this ... years ago. You might like to read and re-read it, to gain some insight into the other cultural changes predicted. It's called 'Nineteen Eighty Four' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four) and was written by George Orwell in 1949. It takes place in Britain ...
It's a federal police/crimefighting body.
The USA equivalent to GCHQ/MI6 are the CIA and NSA.
So, hypothetically speaking, if say the US or UK breaks in to a company's systems without any real justification, authorization or knowledge (i.e. for fun, for espionage, or to illicitly gain control of information or systems for whatever purpose), can the company sue them in an international court?
Can the company lodge a criminal complaint against the offending government in the local jurisdiction?
Can the company lodge a criminal complaint in the offending country pursuant to whatever acts (CFAA, for example) may exist?
What if, in the process of breaking in, they break my company's systems somehow? Do they compensate the company for lost hours, system restores and new hardware?
Is there any recourse whatsoever?
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