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Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

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Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#41

London? Why does anyone have an anticipation of privacy in the UK? This is the city with police cameras on every block, surveillance vans, and a prime minister who literally called the privacy of encryption evil.

>> Why does anyone have an anticipation of privacy in the UK?

Because article 8 of the ECHR guarantees it and the courts generally uphold it. I haven't researched beyond this article but it clearly says what the Met is/was doing is/was illegal.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#42

Outrageous. I worry we in the USA are going this direction too.

You've been there for a hell of a long time. For over 50 years your government has been subverting its own citizens movements which it finds unsavoury...

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#43
post #3

That article is based on an article and an opinion piece that were published in the Guardian last month: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/22/whistl... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/21/ipcc-investi...

You make it sound as if the article was written by a journalist, not a person who had been leaked to and is a part of the story. Anyway, that whistle blower and the leaker could both get 14 years under proposed anti-whistleblower laws: The Guardian failed to point out in its report that new legislation proposed by the Law Commission would make the author of the anonymous letter, Jones herself, and the journalists at…

Why?

Per the article in the Guardian, the Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating the claims.

I'll note that the corroboration was passwords of politically active people, which frankly doesn't do anything to implicate law enforcement. This may well simply be yet another "whistleblower" attempting to sow distrust of any authorities who are not beholden to their own influence.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#44
post #38

> police hacking of journalists and protestors Because they are the real terrorists. I seriously think they had dissidents in mind when pushing for all those "anti-terror" surveillance laws.

If this was illegal surveillance, then obviously it wasn't within the scope of what's allowed by said anti-terror laws.

This doesn't add up for me yet, because I don't understand what the supposed motive is. Do the police have much interest in journalists accounts? I mean really, what's the thinking here? Are London police ignoring murders of journalists? The UK is hardly an autocracy.

Frankly we should wait to see what the IPCC says. This could easily be entirely fabricated, the only corroboration was information that would be accessible to cybercriminals, not anything that implicates law enforcement specifically.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#45
post #16

London? Why does anyone have an anticipation of privacy in the UK? This is the city with police cameras on every block, surveillance vans, and a prime minister who literally called the privacy of encryption evil.

The camera surveillance stuff hasn't been true since the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 when much of it was scrapped. I'm not sure I've never heard of surveillance vans on every block though, that's certainly not true.

There are a lot of fucking cameras in London - they didn't get taken down in 2012. Of course I'm fine with the cameras so ymmv.

Also, plenty of police vans with ANPR systems to check on cars etc as they drive about.

As for the rest, sometimes I wonder if people on HN have forgotten what the real world is like. Is encryption evil? Clearly not. Does it being prevalent cause issues with intercepting terrorist/criminal communications? Probably. So, sure, the prime minister said something which doesn't stand up to scrutiny - as have most politicians and indeed people. Just because someone is wrong doesn't mean that they've ill intentions.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#46

Doesn't seem like a reputable source.

Still an interesting suggestion to look into, init?

You might not believe it is fact, but I for one think it's reasonable to give The Guardian the benefit of the doubt here and have a long hard look at these programs, if only because it has a non-zero chance of being true and only costs time to look into.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#47
post #4

London? Why does anyone have an anticipation of privacy in the UK? This is the city with police cameras on every block, surveillance vans, and a prime minister who literally called the privacy of encryption evil.

Most British subjects would probably want their police to be subject to the law, the same as all other subjects rather than running a criminal conspiracy. If the law is inconvenient or wrong, they can lobby to change it, same as everyone else. Break it, and they really ought to be in jail, same as anyone else.

> British subjects

Virtually nobody is a British subject, we are citizens.

There are only two cases where you can be a British subject: if you were born in the Republic of Ireland before 1949 and claimed British subject status before 1983, or if you were born in a British colony that gained independence but you didn't become a citizen of the new country.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mate, the battle may have been lost but the war never ends.

This level of discourse is very embarrassing for HN.

Not as embarrassing as your comment I'm afraid. I'd refrain from commenting like that in the future.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#50

Outrageous. I worry we in the USA are going this direction too.

My siblings in this thread need to learn about the reforms that were done post-Watergate. The rule of law governs everyone, especially law enforcement, in the USA. If you don't believe that, why do you think lawmakers bother with getting laws passed to allow surveillance in the first place?

You can't have it both ways. Either LEO follow the letter of the law and we're not in some 1984 scenario (because there are, in fact, substantial protections for privacy under the law), or they do not, and we're left with this mystery of why things like the USA PATRIOT Act exist, which now needs to be explained.

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