Slashdot Mirror
UK's GCHQ Intelligence Agency Violated Human Rights With Its Mass Surveillance Tactics, Top European Court Rules (theguardian.com)
GCHQ's methods in carrying out bulk interception of online communications violated privacy and failed to provide sufficient surveillance safeguards, the European court of human rights (ECHR) has ruled in a test case judgment. From a report: But the Strasbourg court found that GCHQ's regime for sharing sensitive digital intelligence with foreign governments was not illegal. It is the first major challenge to the legality of UK intelligence agencies intercepting private communications in bulk, following Edward Snowden's whistleblowing revelations. The long-awaited ruling is one of the most comprehensive assessments by the ECHR of the legality of the interception operations operated by UK intelligence agencies. The case was brought by a coalition of 14 human rights groups, privacy organisations and journalists, including Amnesty International, Liberty, Privacy International and Big Brother Watch. In a statement, published on Amnesty's website, Lucy Claridge, Amnesty International's Strategic Litigation Director, said, today's ruling "represents a significant step forward in the protection of privacy and freedom of expression worldwide. It sends a strong message to the UK Government that its use of extensive surveillance powers is abusive and runs against the very principles that it claims to be defending." He added: This is particularly important because of the threat that Government surveillance poses to those who work in human rights and investigative journalism, people who often risk their own lives to speak out. Three years ago, this same case forced the UK Government to admit GCHQ had been spying on Amnesty -- a clear sign that our work and the people we work alongside had been put at risk. The judges considered three aspects of digital surveillance: bulk interception of communications, intelligence sharing and obtaining of communications data from communications service providers. By a majority of five to two votes, the Strasbourg judges found that GCHQ's bulk interception regime violated article 8 of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees privacy, because there were said to be insufficient safeguards, and rules governing the selection of "related communications data" were deemed to be inadequate, The Guardian newspaper reported.
Commenting on the ruling, Snowden, wrote, "For five long years, governments have denied that global mass surveillance violates of your rights. And for five long years, we have chased them through the doors of every court. Today, we won. Don't thank me: thank all of those who never stopped fighting."
Commenting on the ruling, Snowden, wrote, "For five long years, governments have denied that global mass surveillance violates of your rights. And for five long years, we have chased them through the doors of every court. Today, we won. Don't thank me: thank all of those who never stopped fighting."
Why do I have the feeling that this is a purely symbolic "win"?
Will anybody bear any consequences as a result of this? - Probably not although some low level bureaucrat could play fall guy.
Will the data gathered in violation be destroyed? - How could it be, it's already been "shared".
Will this be prevented from happening again? - Most certainly not.
So yeah, I'm not exactly celebrating...
If you want people to be able to advocate for change in other countries an a way that is illegal for them to advocate for in those countries.
You cannot expect to gather enough information on everyone to stop people from advocating for change in your country. ( even if they advocate for change by protesting and bombing you).
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
well after bxexit the this court ruling will be killed.
The ECHR is not part of the EU infrastructure, and after Brexit the UK will still come under it, unless we separately decide to quit. Brexit removes the UK from the ECJ, which is a separate beastie.
We Brits chose the wrong target. The ECJ is mostly sensible (if you accept the EU Treaties, which I don't). But the ECHR is totally beyond logic, there is no (current) plan for the UK to withdraw from a (different, non-EU) Treaty, and it's a mystery why we still assign our quota of judges there.
The UK is slow but steadily taking more and more steps toward a police state.
Let's be pretty clear. The reason at least Boris Johnson wanted Brexit was he saw it as a pathway to Number 10. I do agree about Farage and Rees-Mogg (the latter looks and talks like a Bond villain for chrissake). All in all, Brexit was a good example of a rightfully angry electorate picking the wrong tool to fix a problem. The good thing is that it appears that the Tories as a group seem to backing May and the Chequers Agreement, in no small part because apart from Rees-Mogg's little cabal, no one really wants Boris Johnson to be PM, and also because everyone understands all too clearly that Europe is Britain's largest trading partner, and falling back on WTO rules would devastate the financial industry.
I doubt there'll be a second referendum, so I think Britain is facing exit from the EU, but with a Soft Brexit that will go some distance towards protecting key industries, preventing the re-establishment of a border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, as well as undermining any new attempts by Scottish nationalists to use Brexit as a hinge point to make a bid for a new referendum (all of these demonstrate just how insane putting an entire nation's economic welfare and unity in the hands of an angry electorate). But I also suspect that we'll probably be looking at re-entry of the UK into the EU at some point in the next 25 years, and this time without the special considerations (goodbye pound sterling).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
... is a cornerstone of the tripartite democratic system, this judgement is a testament to strength. This would never happen in most countries, that is their weakness.