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Does The 'Snoopers Charter' Also Enshrine Lying In Court? (theregister.co.uk)
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.
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.
Try to trace back when this Brexit thing started. It was some time after Snowden. When the EU started complaining about UK's abuses. They called it interference on national sovereignty. Then they started to push other reasons that would be more appealing to the public.
" Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue."
Unfortunately far to many people believe in this line of garbage.
In a basic logic test any information withheld, even if by omission makes evidence untrue. The act of obtaining something illegally creates vice and calls into question the motivations surrounding the evidence collection process.
The very act of suppressing any part of the evidence, the process in which the evidence was gathered and people responsible for gathering that evidence makes the evidence corrupt. It will not possible to find out if someone that hates you was part of the process. It will not be possible to discover if any corruption is also holding back exculpatory evidence in the process. It will not be possible to examine for just plain honest mistakes, bugs, miscalculations, or just plain laziness in the evidence gathering or reporting process.
The "Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue." crowd has put a lot of innocent people in jail. I know you said you were just playing devils advocate but you brought up a serious issue that plagues that human mind and the Justice system very extensively!
The European Union is unusual among political groupings in that it has steadfastly resisted the panopticon whether by businesses or States. Sadly fascism has managed to defeat this in the UK using the nationalist bandwagon and promoting hatred for immigrants. Minority pressure groups will soon find themselves imprisoned as quickly as they are in basket case countries like Turkey, Egypt or North Korea. The brief flowering of representative democracy is coming to an end all over the world. China is soon going to look really enlightened soon compared to what is going on in the west.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
The law actually says they're not allowed to talk about anything they found by spying, or any spying methods. Nowhere does it give them permission to lie about any of it. Obviously some people will lie, but this law doesn't actually permit them to do so.
The first part of the law, saying they can't use the content of any conversation they've snooped on in court, has good and bad consequences, but I think that part is good overall because spying, which by it's nature must be sneaky, should be kept seperate from law enforcement, which should be as transparent as practicable. This is one way the US screwed up after 9-11, IMHO.
Prior to 9-11 in the US, the FBI and other law enforcement handled criminal matters, and were required by law to get search warrants, etc. The CIA and other spies were allowed to do things that police weren't allowed to do, BUT they weren't allowed to use that information in a criminal case or give the information to the FBI. So the intelligence agencies could spy on North Korean agents, and the FBI would investigate drug dealers, each working under rules appropriate* for their job. After 9-11, at was determined that it would be more effective if the CIA/NSA and FBI and other agencies cooperated more, sharing information. Maybe it's more effective in some ways, but it has meant that the NSA has become involved in simple criminal investigations of citizens. That's bad. The spy stuff should be reserved for national security stuff, IMHO.
* Obviously there can be, and has been, much debate about what's appropriate, but clearly what's appropriate for national security intelligence operations may be different than what's appropriate for domestic criminal investigations.