UK Wants Authority To Serve Warrants In U.S. (usatoday.com)

schwit1 writes with this news, as reported by USA Today: British and U.S. officials have been negotiating a plan that could allow British authorities to directly serve wiretap orders on U.S. communications companies in criminal and national security inquiries, U.S. officials confirmed Thursday. The talks are aimed at allowing British authorities access to a range of data, from interceptions of live communications to archived emails involving British suspects, according to the officials, who are not authorized to comment publicly. ... Under the proposed plan, British authorities would not have access to records of U.S. citizens if they emerged in the British investigations. Congressional approval would be required of any deal negotiated by the two countries.

Comments

Yeah, right...

[Lunix Nutcase]

British authorities would not have access to records of U.S. citizens if they emerged in the British investigations.

Riiiiight. They would never do that and hand it over to its Five Eyes brethren in the NSA. That's just crazy talk!

Re:Yeah, right...

[Kobun]

It's already here, they are just getting more brazen about revealing its existence. I don't really know how many fig leaves are left, this might be the second-to-last one.

NSA can't "legally" wiretap everyone in the US? That's ok, let the GCHQ do it and turn the results over to the NSA through a 'cooperative' agreement. GCHQ can't "legally" wiretap British citizens? Why look at that nice cooperative agreement just sitting there!

In other news...

[PvtVoid]

... the British also want to issue tax stamps on tea.

Re:So it begins

[BarbaraHudson]

Another step in the erosion of the sovereignty of each country. Who needs the "one world government" when you can just pull crap like this, the TPP, etc?

Re:Would the UK allow the US to do the same there?

[Anonymous Coward]

They already do: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

Re:Why isn't headline "Obama willing to bend over.

[gstoddart]

Oh, please, the US has been demanding this same kind of crap around the world since 2001.

This security stuff is now the keys to the kingdom, you can undermine sovereignty and violate laws in secret if you put on your fucking puppy dog face and says "because, security".

The US government is actively involved in doing the shit to the rest of the world, so don't look to us for any sympathy. Because an awful lot of Americans seem to think it's just fine when you do it to the rest of the world.

You're damned right this doesn't happen in a vacuum.

But if you think the US hasn't been demanding the ability to wiretap others, or just going ahead and doing it, you've been willfully ignorant to the last bunch of years.

Only now that it's happening to you, you're suddenly outraged.

So they want a smaller, more useless Interpol?

[ComputerGeek01]

Both nations are part of Interpol which was established for exactly this purpose. If they have a problem with the established organization then they need to reform that intermediary body for the betterment of all nations involved. That way it's not just the US you gain better cooperation with, but the other 188 countries as well. If you can't get the other member nations to agree with your proposals, then maybe your ideas aren't that great after all. This "alternative" of sidestepping established practices and micromanaging jurisdictional treaties between every god damn nation under the sun, just because you can't stand criticism from your peers, is nothing short of ridiculous.

Or maybe this has more to do with Interpol's charter forbidding their intervention in political matters #tinfoilhat.

Re:Thanks, Obama

[Kobun]

I absolutely agree with you, for what it's worth. I'd like to add the handful of points below:

• * - The Republican frontrunners are all awful. Bigoted and racist, bought off, stupid-religious pandering turds.
• * - Mind you, there's nothing wrong with religion by itself. You know how the Founding Fathers were pretty much all Diests? Why can't we get back to that, instead of today's superficial Cracker-Jesus?
• * - Bush followed by Bush the 2nd should have taught us that anything resembling family dynasties are a terrible mistake. The Clintons had their time. I would avoid voting for Hillary on that basis alone, even if she wasn't an awful liar and generally horrible person.
• * - On a personal level, my policy for the last 16 years has been to vote for the strongest third party candidate that emerges. I'd love to see an end to the two-party system, however impossible that actually is.
• * - It really doesn't matter, because the state I live in votes so strongly for whoever the Democrat candidate is that there's no hope of it changing.

Lastly, for my single point of contention with you I offer this. The USA's current Healthcare system is already awful, expensive, and sub-standard. The situation exists that SOMETHING will be done about it, unfortunately the something will likely be worse. The "Free Health Care Giveaway" Sanders proposes is probably going to be awful. I also remember how terrible Hillary's healthcare proposal from the early 90's was (and trust me, she hasn't changed in the past 30 years). Basically, I feel that whichever Democrat wins (I really hope the Republicans can't win), we're in for another round of grab-your-ankles-without-lube.

Re:So it begins

[lister king of smeg]

Yes, but you got uppity around 1812 and tried to take the remains of our North American empire away, so we sailed down the Hudson river and burned down the Whitehouse.

We settled on the original borders because we decided you were a lost cause to civilisation.

Wrong. Brittan decided to start attacking US merchant ships trading with France and Africa, and embargoed the US trading with the West Indies, They kidnapped enslaved US citizens by impressing them in to the British navy against their will. They occupied forts inside sovereign US territory in a violation the Jay treaty. Refused compensation for seized US merchant ships, and the British were funding attacks on US outpost in the west by natives. As for the invading Canada the US wasn't really interested in taking territory they sent a militia regiment the idea being that if they could take it they could trade it back to Brittin in exchange for backing down on everything else.