For The UK's 'Snoopers' Charter', Politicians Voted Themselves An Exemption (independent.co.uk)

The "Snoopers' Charter" passed in the U.K. greatly expands the government's surveillance power. But before they'd enact the new Investigatory Powers Act, Britain's elected officials first voted to make themselves exempt from it. Sort of. An anonymous reader writes: While their internet browsing history will still be swept up, just like everyone else's, no one will ever be able to access it without specific approval from the Prime Minister. And according to The Independent, "That rule applies not only to members of the Westminster parliament but also politicians in the devolved assembly and members of the European Parliament."
The article adds that the exemption was the very first amendment they approved for the legislation. And for a very long time, the only amendment.

Comments

Re:Surprising? Not so much. - they're stupid

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

They clearly do not understand how these technologies work. How do they expect to be excluded from mass surveillance? In the words of Edward Snowden, "Security is a binary state" if they are collecting metadata on everyone, for example, there isn't going to be a tag on particular phone numbers to to say "this is a politico", either they are gathering for everyone or no-one. The only way to implement this is to gather all the info, and then annotate it with metadata about all the numbers that belong to politicos, you end up keeping a list of all their phone numbers, social media accounts, etc... so that you can remember that you aren't allowed to look at them. All such identities need to be registered with the government some how, so that they can be excluded. In reality, all the information will still be collected and indexed as that will be the only way to be able to use the information if the PM ever provides permission. In other words, on top of the data being collected, it will also be tagged as especially interesting.

I don't think this achieves what the people proposing the amendment intend. They're being stupid.

Re:A tree in the forest

[ooloorie]

I can see the reason. After all, there are a number of very good reasons why you don't want to hand out possibly blackmail-enabling information about your politicians.

Yeah, it's so much better when only the prime minister can obtain "blackmail-enabling information", because he, of course, would never abuse such information to pressure members of the opposition party! Oh, no, not the prime minister!

Re:Surprising? Not so much. - they're stupid

[currently_awake]

It perfectly achieves the goal of those who want the spying. Telling the ministers they are "exempt" from the spying is cheaper than bribing them to pass this law.