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UK Government Illegally Spied On Amnesty International
Mark Wilson writes with this excerpt from a story at Beta News: A court has revealed that the UK intelligence agency, GCHQ, illegally spied on human rights organization Amnesty International. It is an allegation that the agency had previously denied, but an email from the Investigatory Powers Tribunal backtracked on a judgement made in June which said no such spying had taken place.
The email was sent to Amnesty International yesterday, and while it conceded that the organization was indeed the subject of surveillance, no explanation has been offered. It is now clear that, for some reason, communications by Amnesty International were illegally intercepted, stored, and examined. What is not clear is when the spying happened, what data was collected and, more importantly, why it happened.
The email was sent to Amnesty International yesterday, and while it conceded that the organization was indeed the subject of surveillance, no explanation has been offered. It is now clear that, for some reason, communications by Amnesty International were illegally intercepted, stored, and examined. What is not clear is when the spying happened, what data was collected and, more importantly, why it happened.
Those who fight for human rights are now considered to be on the same side as the terrsts.
Only terrrist want human rights (privacy).
Government just wants you to be safe. You voted them into power after all.
Today’s revelations underscore the urgent need for significant legal reform, including proper pre-judicial authorisation and meaningful oversight of the use of surveillance powers by the UK security services, the organisation said.
Even Amnesty International stated that the surveillance doesn't appear to be illegal under current law.
Exactly! It's Schrodinger's Trial.
Until there has been a verdict, there may or may not have been a crime!
When a Government must lie to the populace it is supposed to represent, and must operate in extreme secrecy, it is no longer a Republic.
Just because we are not seeing Government death squads you believe we are still being ruled by the people? If you really believe that, I'd recommend a lobotomy. The West has been gone for at last three decades, only existing as a fantasy for the masses who have enough "entertainment" to maintain the fantasy.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
There are a lot of organizations, human rights organizations are one of those, that really should consider encrypting all their email. Setup TLS on your mail server, download Thunderbird/Enigmail/GPG and go.
Every second NGO is a front. While they're non-government their humanitarian causes provide legitimate reasons to go about town, get involved with policy makers and do whatever is needed - issue bribes to influence decisions, gather information, collect dirt, etc. Both the USA and Britain use this tactic all the time, so its not surprising they're also spying on other government organizations, which could be up to the same thing. I'm not saying that Amnesty International is, but it would be worth it for them to check.
Now every government says that every other government conducts in spying and that its a necessary evil. The real problem is that its not just spying. Because under the radar operations are not answerable to the people, this makes the already blurry line that separates defense from offense a whole lot fuzzier. The cogs of war are always turning.
Take the example of Afghanistan. The CIA used NGOs extensively there as a base to start funding 'moderate rebels' (terrorists) in order to drive out Soviet Influence. When extra funds were needed, everyone's favorite kingdom Saudi Arabia were happy to help finance operations as well. Speaking of which, Wikileaks just released a report on how Saudi Arabia have extensive operations in every country, to promote their interests.
We're screwed. While covert surveillance is necessary for defense, there's nothing to stop it being corrupted and used for offense, and the policy decisions that lead to war are all conducted in secret. Things are already well underway by the time the media propaganda machine fires up and puts it to the people for 'popular vote'.
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
So I guess I should be irrationally afraid of that organization, and send my SAS death squads to give them a little extra judicial punishment. Or I can just spy on them and figure out what they are up to.
Or neither.
Good troll though. Ridiculous, but not incoherent.
It is very simple as to why they did this. Amnesty was pestering some bad people. These bad people were doing a deal with the UK government that would come under the umbrella of "realpolitik" in order to smooth this deal the home office was asked to help out with some information that would interfere with Amnesty's work. All the little spy drones would say things like "These orders came from the highest level"
So if you were to ask almost everyone at almost every level if this was a good or a bad thing that they have done they would pretty much all agree that it was in the greater interest of the UK. Thus they did bad things to us for our own good.
What they never seem to ask themselves is what the average person in the UK would think about dealing with these very bad people. Most people would quickly say things like the ends not justifying the means.
If you look at the former prime minister TB and his dealing with Libya's madman leader then you know that these people will pursue their own interests, their career interests, and the interests of their friends and supporters long before they would even give a shrug about the interests of the citizenry.
Also when it comes to these people, I don't see the whole "a few bad apples." because if they know that this is going on and do nothing then they are just as bad as the rest. It is no different than if I know my neighbour is murdering people and I just buy earplugs to not hear the screaming. I might not be guilty of murder but it doesn't make me a good apple.