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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!
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?
They have no direct repercussions on you, me, or the guy next door. But what about the politician running for public office? How do you know that he hasn't received threats of blackmail? What about the rich person or celebrity who has the power to sway politicians through campaign donations? What about the heads of large corporations who routinely lobby?
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
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.
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).
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.