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Judges Say the UK's Digital Surveillance Program Snooper's Charter Is Illegal (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: Judges have ruled that the UK government's digital surveillance program -- known variously as the Snooper's Charter and the Investigatory Powers Act -- is illegal.
In the case brought by human rights group Liberty, appeal judges found that the preceding Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (DRIPA) -- which ultimately became the Snooper's Charter -- failed to offer adequate protection to people's data. Of particular concern was the fact that private data could be shared between different agencies without sufficient oversight. Further reading: The Intercept.
In the case brought by human rights group Liberty, appeal judges found that the preceding Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (DRIPA) -- which ultimately became the Snooper's Charter -- failed to offer adequate protection to people's data. Of particular concern was the fact that private data could be shared between different agencies without sufficient oversight. Further reading: The Intercept.
Our judges actually care about civil liberties. You buffoons elected Trump. LOL
DRIPA was repealed at the end of 2016. The UK court is merely affirming the EU's Court of Justice ruling against DRIPA back then and applying it to the IPA now. However, because Britain is leaving the EU, it's unclear as to whether the British government will simply ignore the court ruling since EU laws will no longer have sway over Britain's national security policies.
EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!
Yes, sleazy publishers have always screamed their headlines to sell newspapers. For some reason, remnants of this marketing practice continue in the internet age. It's a delicate balance; trying to appeal to the unwashed masses who have some reading ability without offending the educated reader with crass commercialism. In which group are Slashdot readers?
"Judges Say the UK's Digital Surveillance Program Snooper's Charter Is Illegal"
After reading that headline 4 times and failing to make sense of it, I tried to read TFS. Eventually I understood a bit more. Why Does Every Word Begin With A Capital? Let's try this again:
"Judges say the UK's digital surveillance program Snooper's Charter is illegal"
Now we see that 'Snooper's Charter' is a thing, and the rest are ordinary words. Notice that in this century, many forward thinking publishers no longer scream their headlines. Here are some: ...
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.miamiherald.com/new...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
https://www.cnbc.com/
...omphaloskepsis often...
Judges in the UK can't strike down statutes. The legal system here is not like the US, where the law can evolve directly through the courts as well as through legislation. Our courts are strictly there to interpret existing laws and to deal with conflicts.
In this case, the point is that two laws were incompatible. On the one hand, we have the surveillance law, introduced by our national government. On the other hand, we have the EU human rights laws. The court here took the view that the former were in conflict with the latter, and the latter won.
The same could potentially have happened in a post-Brexit world where those EU laws are no longer supreme, if the equivalent safeguards are transferred into our national law as part of the Brexit process. This is something that various MPs and campaign groups are promoting heavily right now, because they are sceptical about the government's preferred plan where ministers get to transfer laws but also make some adjustments to them, ostensibly for practical reasons, but without necessarily passing primary legislation in Parliament. The loss of EU-derived safeguards for human rights, employee protections and the like is the main reason for concern here.
Of course, assuming we do leave the EU and our national law is then all we have to work with, that does mean that the elected legislature can amend those laws however they want and judges then have to rule based on the new laws. This is by design, and is part of what's called parliamentary sovereignty -- the principle that Parliament is supreme among all parts of the government and can't be overruled by the government alone, activist judges or (more historically now) other potential influences such as royalty or aristocrats.
The potential downside of this is that, yes, they can make bad laws too. The upside is that if MPs do that, there will no longer be anywhere for them to hide. If they want to pass a law that says they can do something bad to ordinary people, they're going to have to do it in public through the mechanisms of Parliament and they're going to be accountable for it at the next general election.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.