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Does The 'Snoopers Charter' Also Enshrine Lying In Court? (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the investigatory-prevarications dept.

The U.K.'s newly-based Investigatory Powers Act (the Snoopers' Charter) "allows the State to tell lies in court," according to The Register, saying it enshrines into law "the practice where prosecutors lie about the origins of evidence to judges and juries." Jigsy shares their report: The operation of the oversight and accountability mechanisms...are all kept firmly out of sight -- and, so its authors hope, out of mind -- of the public. It is up to the State to volunteer the truth to its victims if the State thinks it has abused its secret powers. "Marking your own homework" is a phrase which does not fully capture this...

Section 56(1)(b) creates a legally guaranteed ability -- nay, duty -- to lie about even the potential for State hacking to take place, and to tell juries a wholly fictitious story about the true origins of hacked material used against defendants in order to secure criminal convictions. This is incredibly dangerous. Even if you know that the story being told in court is false, you and your legal representatives are now banned from being able to question those falsehoods and cast doubt upon the prosecution story. Potentially, you could be legally bound to go along with lies told in court about your communications -- lies told by people whose sole task is to weave a story that will get you sent to prison or fined thousands of pounds.

6 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. What's the point of having a court like this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Courts are suppose to get to the TRUTH of the matter and decide what to do based on TRUTH. What's the point of having a court where the government is allowed to lie, expected to lie, and the people being lied about are required to act like the law is the truth?

    1. Re:What's the point of having a court like this? by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Supposedly (playing devil's advocate) they are telling the truth about the evidence. They are not allowed to lie about what the evidence is, only how it was obtained. Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue. There has been more than one trial in the US where officers found a murder weapon or other evidence to convict a person of murder and then the conviction is overturned, not because the evidence was wrong but the officers didn't have the right paperwork. The reasoning behind this was the protection of the 4th Amendment was more important than a few murder convictions. They've been chafing against this limitation in the law for decades. Here in the US under the UnPatriotic Act we now have secret warrants. Supposedly they have a warrant but no one can see it. Imagine that in a free society. May God damn everyone who voted for the UnPatriotic Act. The foundations of the Republic are more important than thousands of deaths. Tearing down freedom will result in Millions of deaths.

    2. Re:What's the point of having a court like this? by deadwill69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you can't be bothered to follow the few evidentiary rules we have, present a truthful case, with being truthful about how you got said evidence for the case, then how can I be bothered to believe that the evidence itself is true? Take your word for it?

      I do mostly agree with your take on this. Just responding to the question.

    3. Re:What's the point of having a court like this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue.

      Without knowing the chain of evidence, it's difficult to impossible to prove whether the evidence is true or not. The planting of evidence happens more often than it should (i.e., never).

      It sounds almost like this law is designed to discredit political opponents. State actors keep a trove of electronic child pornography material and bring cases against anyone those in power do not like. The child pornography itself is real, but since it's now illegal to question where it came from, the defense cannot disprove that it came from the defendant's machine and was deleted later.

  2. The Permanent Death of Truth by zenlessyank · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All hail the Lie. And you want me to pledge my allegiance to you. Ha HA HA ha Ha hA

  3. Re:That's why the evidence isn't admissable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One possible way to handle those very rare instances might be for the intelligence agent to tell the police only "Joe Blow is doing something very bad. You should check him out thoroughly, immediately."

    You've pretty much described "parallel construction".