Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

EU's Highest Court Delivers Blow To UK Snooper's Charter (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fighting-back dept.

"General and indiscriminate retention" of emails and electronic communications by governments is illegal, the EU's highest court has ruled, in a judgment that could trigger challenges against the UK's new Investigatory Powers Act -- the so-called snooper's charter. From a report on The Guardian: Only targeted interception of traffic and location data in order to combat serious crime -- including terrorism -- is justified, according to a long-awaited decision by the European court of justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg. The finding came in response to a legal challenge initially brought by the Brexit secretary, David Davis, when he was a backbench MP, and Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, over the legality of GCHQ's bulk interception of call records and online messages. Davis and Watson, who were supported by Liberty, the Law Society, the Open Rights Group and Privacy International, had already won a high court victory on the issue, but the government appealed and the case was referred by appeal judges to the ECJ. The case will now return to the court of appeal to be resolved in terms of UK legislation.

6 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. A Horrible Law by TuxThePenguin2205 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Brilliant news, lets hope this judgement sticks.

  2. Why would that matter? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isn't the UK leaving the EU?

    1. Re:Why would that matter? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Isn't the UK leaving the EU?

      Define: leave.

      Seriously, whothefuckknows. The referendum was merely to "leave". There was no vote on what leave means, what qualifies as leave and what the government must or must not do in order to satisfy "leave". Actually technically nothing, since it wasn't binding, but assuming they follow through (seems likely in some form) there's no mandate whatsoever on any particular form of leave.

      That's one reason why the referendum was incredibly stupid because it asked an almost completely undefined question. The only thing that "leave" means definitively is not be a voting member of the EU. So, we must lose our influence. However, unless we want to head on over to utter irrelevance, we're still going to have to deal with the EU. That means we will have to sign treaties of some sort which means we will have to agree to behave in a certain way. Because unlike in the bizarre fantasy of many brexiters, no one will sign a trade deal that allows you to do whatever the fuck you want.

      So, it may or may not be that we have to agree to be under the remit of this court if we want don't want to be completely shafted. So even if we leave, we may well have to agree to abide by the rulings.

      And anyway, we're still a member until up to 2 years (or more!) after Article 50 is invoked which means we're still obligated to abide by the rulings.

      Bear in mind that Norway is not a member of the EU. So, while sticking to the only definition of "leave" we have, we could leave and sign a Norway style deal which would mean everything is exactly the same as it is now except we pay more, get a smaller rebate and have no voting rights. We could do that and still "leave". Or we could just close borders, expel all foreigners and fuck right off into the North Sea, or anything in between.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Why would that matter? by Coisiche · · Score: 3, Interesting

      it has been 6 months from the referendum result and the government still hasn't even decided what to negotiate for yet

      In any industry I think a project manager who had only produced vague statements with nothing concrete for 6 months would be looking at quick receipt of a P45. Maybe even less than 6 months.

      Unfortunately we can't get rid of the government for another 3 and a half years. And even then it will be tricky because of boundary changes favouring the Conservative party (which they probably have to hurry and pass while they still have a working majority). Although if they don't get Brexit through there might be some huge swings to UKIP, but I don't think they would ever get enough seats to form the government, and if they do get Brexit through and the leave voters don't immediately find themselves better off they are going to blame the Conservative government. No wonder Cameron resigned.

  3. Re:Cannot compute... by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Interesting

    David Davis is a little bit of an oddity here. He is typically very much on the right wing, anti-EU side of the party, but he is extremely strongly in favour of human rights protections.

  4. Also a violation of the Canada-UK data treaty by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Which applies to all the Canadians working in the UK.

    Under the Canadian Constitution, they have an explicit right of Privacy, and this "law" violates the right that treaty protects.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --