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EU's Highest Court Delivers Blow To UK Snooper's Charter (theguardian.com)
"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.
Brilliant news, lets hope this judgement sticks.
Isn't the UK leaving the EU?
U.K. left the eu.
Well, actually the are to the right of the eu do to russian manipulation
And so a million Brexitards go into meltdown due to cognitive dissonance overload. David Davis MP is mysteriously silent on the subject at the moment.
You could power the national grid by harnessing Davis' cognitive dissonance. A court case decided in his favour against his employers by one of the institutions he's responsible for ridding us of.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
David Davis may have been one those that initially filed the challenge but he exited from the complaint on becoming Brexit minister. Suggesting that the price of his principles is being given a cabinet seat. His name doesn't really deserve any mention regarding this since he abandoned it.
Unbelievable that we, as a sovereign nation, have to adjust our laws because of a bunch of unelected twats in Brussels or for this example Luxembourg. Where is the democracy in that?
EU also ruled that UK police have to delete it's DNA database of innocent people, but that hasn't happened yet hazzit?
If I had "Mod Points", I'd mod you up for that observation...
Several things interest me about this particular piece of legislation:-
1. It Doesn't Work [1] - When the United States located Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, it was revealed that no telephone line, no internet connection and no cell phone was connected to the compound in which he lived. In fact, it was a "black spot" for services. Instead, trusted couriers carried encrypted USB sticks by hand. Pretty good OpSec, by all accounts. In other words - the really dangerous terrorists out there do not use the internet to plan their activities or communicate with each-other; they are too smart for that
2. It Doesn't Work [2] - When major incidents have happened [such as was the case with the Paris Attacks, the monitoring of the perpetrators [which had been taking place] was not effective in *STOPPING* the atrocity, it was only useful for telling us that within 24 hours of the incident, the partner of one of the terrorists had fled the country and entered Syria via Turkey. Yes, this might be useful at stopping secondary or tertiary attacks, or at finding the support network, but it won't actually stop the event itself.
3. It Doesn't Work [2] - When investigators looked into the perpetrators of the Boston Bombing in the wake of the marathon attacks, it was again discovered that the perpetrators had been monitored by the security agencies, but that even though they had been "red flagged", the responsible agency had discounted the information because they had so much other data to review. The blanket dragnet meant that they spent all their time triaging initial cuts of data, not enough time following up on reasonable leads.
4. It's An Erosion of the Presumption of Innocence - The fact that *everyone* is caught up in the net [unless you are an MP or member of the judiciary, etc] means that every single person in the UK is presumed guilty of an offence - without being charged. The data is being collected "in case you do something bad"...
5. The Damaging Risk Of Leaks - There have been too many examples of data theft or accidential leakage to bother citing examples here; the fact is that such a treasure-trove of data would be too tempting for organised criminals. In the United States, insurance companies reported that in the wake of the TSA requirement for "approved locks" on all airline luggage, claims against theft of valuables from checked luggage have sky-rocketed. A system set up for one benefit - passenger safety - is being abused by another threat - light-fingered airport staff - resulting in millions being claimed, and tens or hundreds of thousands of passengers becoming victims every year. We should expect the same sort of widespread damage once the data is being collected. Remember - it is not being collected and held by a government agency, but by the telecommunications providers. Like TalkTalk. [ Data Leak Central ].
6. Erosion of Basic Freedoms - Perhaps the most significant change, however, is the way that the relationship between the state and the citizen changes as a result of this. Unlike, say, the US [which has a constitution], the UK has no such basic safety net for human rights. What this means is that more and more powers are being given to government and which are being mis-used.
As an example of this, when researchers looked into a similar and previously enacted piece of legislation [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act], it was discovered that among the more notable and widespread uses of the law came from actions taken by local councils who were spying on residents suspected of "cheating" the school catchment area process. This is a mechanism by which children are enrolled in schools based on their home address. In other words, they way that legislation is "sold" to voting MPs and the way that it is actually used are two entirely different things.
But lastly, perhaps, is the fact that this would/will put so much power in the hands of the state that it makes the individual citizen defenceless against abuse by that state. And that is a very frightening place for us to be.
leave the EU and keep you spying , stay and dont do it
hail Theresa May
It certainly wasn't what people asked for. Some faceless bureaucrat I have nothing in common with in Whitehall made this crap up, paid some ivory tower solicitors a bloody fortune that immediately left the country for a tax haven to write it without all the talk of WHAT THE GODDAMNED LAW WAS FOR, and the same bureaucrats ALSO wrote themselves out from under the law.
Not democratic at all. Autocratic? Yes. Democratic? No.
gtfo no go now and lose all kinds a your economics and ten years on when your unable to afford interent ...it will be better
This was "The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014". A piece of emergency legislation in order to provide a short term framework for security services to actually be able to actually do anything after a repeal of the earlier legislation for similar reasons. This will expire a week on Saturday.
It will be replaced by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. Perhaps this ruling will be used as a precedent for challenges to the latest bill.
Security/Police types think that you being 'allowed' to think anything you want is wrong, they think we are all criminals, that there are two types of people, criminals they have caught and ones they haven't caught yet. If they can't control your every move, they do not trust you.
So, until they have 100% control, they are going to complain and push for more and now that the 'think of the children' concept has turned into the One Unbeatable Argument, they will turn everything into that to win.
Forget that in ALL Cases so far their powers were all they needed to do their job and that in ALL Cases so far, THEY dropped the ball in more than one occasion. In Each and EVERY CASE SO FAR.
This is fucking outrageous. ISIS has sent tens of thousands of terrorists to the UK posing as "migrants" and the fucking EU wants us to drop one of the best tools we have to fight them. And fucking libtards sit around wondering why brexit and Trump happen. THIS IS WHY YOU MORONS.
I find it interesting that the individual, David Davis, who filed the complaint with the EU is also a strong member of the Brexit group.
No, no, no, we do not want to be part of the EU. Oh, wait a minute. We want to take advantage of some of its laws. In that case, well, never mind. But for everything else we need to get out of the EU.
It's good to see that the USA doesn't have a lock on political hypocrisy.
Even a repressive, brain dead organization like the EU can get something right once in a long while.
The law was brought forward by the MPs, NOT the voters. The discussion was between the MPs and tech lobbyists, NOT the voters. And it was enacted by the MPs vote, NOT THE VOTERS.
Go ahead and show us where the MPs were told to produce this snoopers' charter. You can't because it never happened.
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! --
Directly or indirectly, the UK people get some benefit in exchange for ceding that influence. This is the basis for every international treaty and agreement ever. This is why those treaties were signed in the first place.
Is this not obvious?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You keep saying "If we make deals then we have to agree to let other people have a say over our laws" and ignoring other poster's examples of specifics that do NOT NEED TO BE PART OF A TRADE DEAL ... and that is the point. Brexit means that all the OTHER stuff, (like the EU position on immigration, or voting, or wearing culturally-appropriate garments) is superfluous until it is included in a wholly new trade deal.
TL;DR: Previous deals with the EU as a member != Trade Deals with the EU that are JUST ABOUT TRADE AND NOT RUNNING EVERY FACET OF YOUR LIFE.
(Emphasis added because of your disingineous arguements.)
Comment removed based on user account deletion