Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
It would seen the defense could bring up this law to cast doubt on the prosecution even if the prosecution wasn't lying.
Vaguely reminiscent of The Trial...
So fire your lawyer and state the truth yourself if they're too chicken-shit to oppose a bad law. Insist on a jury trial. Jurors are getting pretty good at the whole jury nullification thing. BTW, it is NOT illegal to tell the jury they can nullify the law - just that judges don't like it and will punish you for it - and their doing so will make the jury distrust the whole legal system.
Also, appeals courts have set aside convictions based on things like handing out flyers outside of courthouses to let jurors know their right to nullify a law, as well as convictions where no jury is present.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Fuck Orwell, he went and wrote a how-to manual for these bastards.
Brexit is non-binding.
Getting 52% is getting 52%.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
All hail the Lie. And you want me to pledge my allegiance to you. Ha HA HA ha Ha hA
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.
Sadly all democratic States appear to have embraced efficiency as the metric of success above all else. Random destruction of individuals is the result. The joke that life is ruled by "doing the right thing" became the opposite of reality once politicians declared it as their goal. Here is a tip to guide your life by. Just take any slogan that politicians declare and realize that they are saying it because they know for sure that they are either implementing policies that have the opposite effect or that it is already happening. Watch your back and keep a low profile, they are out to get you paranoid or not.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
And then promptly get arrested for implying forbidden implications.
Check it out: it's a law that cannot be brought up in court.
Just target a person and plant child porn on any of their devices (given the hacking capabilities of GCHQ, just about anybody can be targeted), then (legally) lie about this in court - and there you go, that's all you need to imprison pretty much anyone.
That's one of the most dangerous laws there is.
So there are still oversight and accountability mechanisms? Phew, I was worried there for a second that there wouldn't be. There must be nothing to see here, moving along.
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.
Put yourself on a jury and the defense points out the law and argues that everything the prosecution says is false. Prosecution can't readily prove it. And if the prosecution supports its evidence with lies, it could be simpler to disprove them or cast doubt upon them than if they were true. I'd be inclined to acquit in any and all cases. Not sure about U. K. but America is "beyond reasonable doubt" and with foreknowledge that the prosecution can lie, I would never acquit. They could never prove to me beyond reasonable doubt that the whole thing was made up. Am I missing something here?
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.
> If you are allowed to submit "unverifiable" or what I call inscrutable evidence
This law says they are NOT allowed to submit the evidence found by spying. That's an important step, though not sufficient by itself.
The issue that arises then is if the spies find out about some criminal activity, and tell law enforcement about it, law enforecement might search the house to get admissible evidence. However, if the search is challenged, if the police are asked "why did you search?" - well that's a problem. Unless the police are allowed to refuse to answer that question, they'll lie. Which is why in my opinion the spies should not tell the police about the drug dealer. The spies should generally stick to traditional spy stuff, intelligence against other countries, foreign terrorists, etc. and ignore any crime they happen to come across. That way you don't get this improper use of spy techniques in criminal cases.
Very rarely, the intelligence agencies might come across a heinous crime IN PROGRESS. Imagine a serial killer who abducts his victims, holds them prisoner for two weeks, then kills them. We wouldn't want the spies to just ignore that, but we do want a general policy that spooks don't investigate domestic crime. 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." Then the police have to do the hard work of investigating without receiving any details that the spies came across, almost like they'd handle an anonymous tip. The difference being they know this tip isn't a prank, they really do need to investigate.
UK (AFAIK) doesn't have a written constitution
Technically, we have a written, but not codified constitution.
1. Brexit: Cameron just 'randomly' "CHOSE" majority (50%+1) as the requirement for Brexit
Nope, he didn't choose anything. Unlike the previous referendum, there was nothing in the act about what would happen if it passed, which was part of the problem. There was no provision in the bill stating requirements for either side to win, nor what happened if they did. As a result, the referendum has no more legal force than an opinion poll. That's not a problem with not having a codified constitution (the US, for example, has no provisions for referenda in its constitution, so would be in a similar situation if a poorly worded referendum act passed in Congress), that's a problem with politicians not thinking through the consequences of their actions. If you have a solution for that problem, most of the world would be interested in hearing it...
2. Scottish Independence vote... again... just randomly made up rules at the time by the PM to decide things
This referendum was held because it was an election promise by the party that won the majority (if memory serves, in fact all) of the seats representing Scotland.
The Queen can just DISSOLVE Parliament whenever she wants... and force new elections
That's technically true, but not really relevant as it would trigger a constitutional crisis if it ever did happen (as I recall, Australia and Canada have similar clauses in their constitutions). As of the Fixed Term Parliament Act, the government can no longer call a general election with a simple vote and a majority of one of the MPs that bother to turn up. That's largely a superficial distinction though, because a general election can be triggered by a vote of no confidence, which requires a simple majority.
This nonsense that can't even be challenged in court because there is no such thing as a "First Amendment" in the UK
This can be challenged in court, and almost certainly will be (I know of one challenge that's already been launched, there will no doubt be others). It's likely to be in violation of the ECHR, so can be challenged in all of the way up to the European Court of Human Rights. In this respect, the UK is luckier than the USA, because to bring a case to overturn a law in the USA, you must show someone who has been harmed by the law in question. In the UK, laws can be challenged on the basis that they permit hypothetical harm and the judiciary can require that they be amended to avoid that hypothetical from becoming reality. This is particularly important in cases like this, where it's very difficult to prove harm because the evidence is classified and exempt from FOIA requests because of national security.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So, what's the point of having a court system, if the truth no longer has meaning under this section of law? Why waste state and taxpayer money if the prosecution can basically manufacture evidence, then lie about where it came from? Just suspend the jury system, you're just wasting their time when one side is allowed, or even required, to lie in order to convict someone.
Why even have a public system at all? Just have "offenders" picked up by police, secret or not, and then disappear to prison, or simply disappear? Isn't that a more logical step under this standard of law?
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
The petition has been evaluated, and ignored:
"The Investigatory Powers Act dramatically increases transparency around the use of investigatory powers. It protects both privacy and security and underwent unprecedented scrutiny before becoming law."
Fair point about the scrutiny: several Parliamentary committees ripped it to shreds, the House of Lords ripped it to shreds, there was a huge amount of outcry against it. Instead, Comrade Corbyn the Messiah expressed his utter disgust at the intrusiveness by not bothering to show for the vote (probably at some ego-massaging Momentum rally), and the rest of the Labour Party (our illustrious opposition party) were so utterly opposed to it they voted for it. Still, it's going to be challenged in several court cases and we might just squeak through a temporary reprieve thanks to the EU and the ECJ - at least until the trainwreck that is Brexit kicks in properly.
You seem to know so little history. The Senate was supposed to represent the states, not the people. Originally the Senators were elected by their state legislatures. It was only after the passage of the 17th Amendment that voters elected Senators.
There is nothing unfair about each state having two senators. It's only your ignorance of history that makes you think it so.
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.
Doesn't it also say they may not present such evidence in the first place? ("No evidence may be adduced...")
So how/why would they then be able to/need to lie about where it came from?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It is similar to parallel construction, but somewhat different (at least for one definition of parallel construction).
One definition of "parallel construction" would be:
The intelligence agency provides some specific information to the police.
The police make up some BS story about how they got that information.
The police use that information as probable cause for a search.
There's no ideal solution, of the spies find an ongoing serious crime, but this is an improvement:
The intelligence agency gives no specific information to the police. Just "you should look into what happens at ABC Club".
The police have no probable cause at that point, they have to do old-fashioned police work.
The police can ask neighbors about ABC Club, they can visit ABC Club when it's open to the public, etc.
What the police CAN'T do is use the information from spies as probable cause, lying about the source of the information, because the spies didn't GIVE them any information.
I think the UK politicians led people to Brexit to have a free hand in pushing these stupid authoritarian laws. They knew these new laws were coming and planned to smooth the way ahead.
Why are Americans so absolutely certain they know absolutely everything about the laws, customs and culture of countries they've never visited & couldn't even point to on a map?
There should be a unit. The dY - deciyank. Log (amount they think they know / amount they actually know)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
On top of that, it'll make it easier to get rid of all that oiky stuff like employment rights and health and safety.
Full speed ahead to the 1880s!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The EU is socialist? You have just proved that like all the other Brexiters you are totally clueless. The EU is not socialist, it aims to promote capitalist trade within Europe.
Mod parent up please.
> They are not allowed to lie about the content, but they ARE allowed to lie about the source
Here's the actual text of the law. Where exactly do you see that? I see that by the plain words of the law they "may not disclose ... any content of an intercepted communication", I don't see any authorization to disclose the content and lie about the source.
(1) No evidence may be adduced, question asked, assertion or disclosure made or other thing done in, for the purposes of or in connection with any legal proceedings or Inquiries Act proceedings which (in any manner)â"
(a) discloses, in circumstances from which its origin in interception-related conduct may be inferredâ"
(i) any content of an intercepted communication, or
(ii) any secondary data obtained from a communication, or
(b) tends to suggest that any interception-related conduct has or may have occurred or may be going to occur.
Immigrants are promoting hatred for immigrants in the UK. If you don't make trouble, you don't generate hatred.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
You need two votes of no confidence, within a certain time... But it's not that superficial a difference. The only way to achieve a general election through this route is a public statement to the effect that the current government is a failure and needs to be replaced.
I'm guessing the courts would rule this law unconstitutional as abusing the separation of government and judiciary, but until someone can figure out how to get that question to the Supreme court, who knows what abuses will take place.
And if you raised the question of whether it is legal, haven't you already raised the issue itself contrary to the law? I can't imagine any judge accepting this nonsense.
We have rules in place because they were imposed from above. Mobs never did anything good for anyone. Get over yourself, Trump supporter.
So the entire civil rights movement never did any good for anyone? Really, who is this stupid? Only the ubiquitous and ignorant AC.
Sounds like you are being paid by some factor of the authoritarian left to "Speak power to truth," squash and squelch any dissent, and spread the message that the government is the ultimate authority and they know what is Best.
I miss the days when liberalism included a broad base of people who questioned authority, who rejected the notion that the government knew better than the people, and that we should view with a rightfully jaundiced eye the power that the state holds over the people. Now its "toe this line or you will be branded an outcast!" Jack booted ideological thugs have taken over the "left" and turned it into a parody of what it was. You need look no further than this for why we have the parody of a republican as the president elect as well.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I see that by the plain words of the law they "may not disclose ... any content of an intercepted communication", I don't see any authorization to disclose the content and lie about the source.
You stopped too soon. Read the rest of the text. The key phrases are "discloses, in circumstances from which its origin in interception-related conduct may be inferred ... or tends to suggest that any interception-related conduct has or may have occurred or may be going to occur". As long as they disguise the origin enough to protect their secret spying program they can use the intercepted content however they want. The point of this clause isn't to protect the public from misuse of the intercepted communications, it's to keep the interception program itself out of the public eye.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
True statement, however they were just that, the extremes, relegated to the outer edges of the bell curve, deevs apart from the mainstream expression of the party ethic. Now both parties seem to have adopted extreme positions as their main charter. The thugginess is now enshrined in their core tenets, not some deniably convenient release valve for the more "avid" members.
If this inexorable slide into sensationalism and pseudo-fanaticism is where the future is heading, please excuse me while I DON'T keep up. You idiots can have it.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
> The point of this clause isn't to protect the public from misuse of the intercepted communications, it's to keep the interception program itself out of the public eye.
Agreed, absolutely. And one way to keep it out of the public eye is to not have it involved in public trials, aka criminal cases. If they can't legally reveal the source of the information amd they can't *legally* lie about the source, than they can't really use the information for criminal prosecution without breaking the law. Hopefully they follow the law most of the time, meaning that they don't use it for domestic criminal investigations.
Watch it England. This is how you stoke a revolution. Everyone knows it'll be abused. Then abused more and more often until the lid blows off. Now you have a mess. Sometimes people lose their head.
If they can't legally reveal the source of the information amd they can't *legally* lie about the source, than they can't really use the information for criminal prosecution without breaking the law.
They'll still use it, after coming up with an alternate explanation for how the information was obtained. They won't even have to lie, exactly—once they use the secret interception to identify their target, they'll go back and perform a public and apparently above-board investigation based on those results (perhaps laundered via an "anonymous tip" from a "concerned citizen"); the results from that investigation are the ones they supply to the court. Of course, the public investigation never would have been started if it weren't for the data they secretly intercepted, and the defendant, whether guilty or innocent, will face an uphill battle combatting the mass of circumstantial evidence compiled long before the public investigation even started. This is no different from "parallel construction" as currently practiced in the U.S., with all the attendant problems. If you set out to find people who look guilty, you will turn up more than a few who are actually innocent—and if the fact that the case was founded on a dragnet search is kept secret, that circumstantial evidence will be granted far too much weight. As far as the victim can prove it's just a case of really bad luck, when in fact the system is secretly selecting for those least able to defend themselves, which leads to a high false-positive rate.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat