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Data Store and Spying Laws Found Illegal By EU Court
WillAffleckUW writes: The EU High Court found the United Kingdom's data retention (and subsequent storage and analysis) and surveillance laws to be illegal throughout the EU, which subsequently would be an argument in courts in Australia and Canada against their own spy laws. This effectively brings back the rule of law that all EU citizens have a right to privacy that is at the Bill of Rights level, not an easily short-circuited legal basis.
"The judges identified two key problems with the law: that it does not provide for independent court or judicial scrutiny to ensure that only data deemed 'strictly necessary' is examined; and that there is no definition of what constitutes 'serious offenses' in relation to which material can be investigated." It is uncertain that this would apply to U.S. spy laws, as a right of privacy is only inferred by U.S. high courts and is not written into constitutions as it is in the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
"The judges identified two key problems with the law: that it does not provide for independent court or judicial scrutiny to ensure that only data deemed 'strictly necessary' is examined; and that there is no definition of what constitutes 'serious offenses' in relation to which material can be investigated." It is uncertain that this would apply to U.S. spy laws, as a right of privacy is only inferred by U.S. high courts and is not written into constitutions as it is in the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Perhaps everything is not lost, it seems the EU high court still respects basic human rights.
Commander Tacko's Ball Licking Phun
This effectively brings back the rule of law that all EU citizens have a right to privacy that is at the Bill of Rights level
As if that ever stopped the past few administrations of the United States. Too many two-bit whores who goose-step to their Big Party masters to call them out over civil rights abuses.
The decision only affects the EU!
Though some US judges have included extracts of EU decisions in their rulings, it is for the reasoning & not because EU courts have any role in the US judicial system. This ruling will have as much effect on the US as rulings from the Thai high court on the definition of Lèse Magisté or Russian court rulings on what is & what isn't considered corruption.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
This wasn't an EU court. It was the UK High Court, which based it's ruling on the UK Human Rights Act, which is a UK act of parliament which enshrines the European Convention on Human Rights (a treaty which pre-dates the EU and the EC) into UK law. (Where "UK" kind of excludes Scotland. IANAL, let alone a constitutional one).
a right of privacy is only inferred by U.S. high courts and is not written into constitutions
You mean other than:
?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
By pushing even harder to get out of the EU so they can continue to stomp on their citizen's rights.
Fuhrer Harper doesn't give a rat's ass about our Constitution or Charter of Rights in Canada. His government has spent millions fighting lawsuits challenging their illegal legislation on a Charter basis, only to "tweak" the legislation when the courts mandated that the law must change, but never tweaking it to comply with the Charter, only to meet the courts demand that it change.
Fuhrer Harper is busy threatening the entire nation with an impending terrorist-inspired doom if we don't re-elect the Cuntservatives this fall. Have no doubt, C-51 (the most recent spying legislation) will be challenged in court and will lose, but that doesn't stop mein Fuhrer from pushing it through like the jackboot he is anyhow.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This isn't going to make any difference.
The EU "Right to Privacy" and indeed all the human rights encoded in the relevant document are so riddled with exceptions that you can drive a bus through them. The fact that any government lost at all is amazing and surely the result of incompetent lawyering. From the text:
The national security exception by itself seems enough to allow nearly anything, but then they add public safety and economic well being on top! In fact every reason a government might have for engaging in surveillance is covered, which cannot be an accident.
But anyway, GCHQ is not about to suddenly discover that it cares about these things. It's been obvious since the start that the 5 Eyes agencies perceive themselves as being entirely outside ordinary democratic constraints, unfortunately, that perception is largely true as senior ministers think real life is like an episode of 24 and gives them essentially blanket immunity to do whatever they like.
So this won't last long.
Every move I've ever seen by the EU has had a couple layers to it. I wouldn't be surprised if there is an exception in it that allows business as usual.
I'm not claiming the US is superior... we love our loopholes as well. In the most absurd cases the loophole is merely a lack of enforcement.
We have that with quite a few laws where things are completely illegal but... if it isn't enforced then its not really against the law unless the government makes an exception randomly at any time it chooses.
And in the most pathetic incidents... say government corruption... they simply refuse to prosecute themselves. Only they are allowed to bring the case... and they simply decline to do so. Boom. Blank check to do what they want.
When you get into spying and stuff... how do you even know what they're doing?
The Europeans knew the NSA was operating in their countries because part of the deal was that the NSA would pass collected intelligence on to them. THus they got the benefit of spying on their people while not technically personally doing it. The Americans would do it for them.... and they'd get plausible deniability.
That was the old arrangement pre-Snowden.
Now of course the politicians are all pretending to have not known.
When that cools down... I doubt anything will change.
Outside of little communities like this one... no one cares.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The EU does not even have a formal constitution. Even rulings from the European court of human rights are often ignored by member states because there is no real way to enforce the rulings if they are not implemented in national law.
This could solve all of the EU's problems. No more stiff upper lips, get rid of the British pound...its a win win scenario!
Its the UK high court, NOT the EU high court (There's no such thing)
Two letters the headline writer had to get right.
They only got one letter right, and got that in the wrong place.
And they're still keeping the law anyway because "people might die", as Theresa May put it. She uses the most extreme false claims, indicating desperation.
Which means its being misused and they're covering their asses, if the legal basis is removed (no matter how specious the claim) then watchdogs can report the misuse to the public.
Which is how we learned about Amnesty International being spied on, because the spooks/government didn't follow the minor detail of how long they keep the surveillance data. Which in turn permitted the watchdog to tell Amnesty International they were being spied on by the British government.
Theresa May needs to fess up, admit what they've been doing and Parliament and people need to decide if that's what they want and if we need to prosecute any of them.