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.

Comments

What's the point of having a court like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:What's the point of having a court like this?

[amiga3D]

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.

Re:What's the point of having a court like this?

[deadwill69]

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.

Re:What's the point of having a court like this?

[SirAstral]

" 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!

Solution

[BarbaraHudson]

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.

Re:Solution

[drinkypoo]

What country do you think this is?

I think that England has had jury nullification since the 17th century. No?

The Permanent Death of Truth

[zenlessyank]

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

That's why they had to get our of EU

[zedaroca]

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.

What me worry?

[jader3rd]

The operation of the oversight and accountability mechanisms...are all kept firmly out of sight

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 law doesn't actually say they can lie

[raymorris]

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.

Re:*sigh* again... this is what you get....

[TheRaven64]

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.