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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.
And is the main reason Westminster wants to get the UK out of the ECHR so it can make laws like this legal.
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
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).
Well yes. But this is a protection against government snooping. It's my understanding that the EU right extend to protection against private entities spying. Like what Google/Facebook may or may not collect.
In the USA, the loophole has been to declare all metadata to be the sole property of the telecom. So it's not individuals' data the government is collecting. And the telecoms are very cooperative.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.