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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!
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
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?
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.
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).
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.
re " I am legally required to install a backdoor onto my network and computers in order to get any online connectivity at all."
The products that ship from the big international brands seems to be helping with the decades of tame crypto, telco networks and junk standards.
The UK has a long history of that going back to ww1, ww2, Ireland and for domestic issues.
All a person can do is be aware of the quality of crypto offered to the public, the OS and telco network collaboration.
The backdoors and trapdoors are installed by default by the brand offering the products or services.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.