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UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

theguardian.com

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Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#101

Post by wu-ikkyu »

dalbasal wrote: post #60
turc1656 wrote: post #42

"Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful. This judgement tells ministers in crystal clear terms that they are breaching the public’s human rights." So the question then remains...where are the handcuffs?! I ask this question constantly when it comes to government wrongdoing and there is almost never anyone charged with anything. If the government has been acting in a…

Well... These are the (large) cracks in rule of law that no one has ever managed to close entirely. It's dangerous to criminalise political tier decisions and actions, just like it's dangerous to prosecute former politicians. It harms the ability to preserve peaceful transitions. Criminals or not. First, it opens a door to political purging. Also incentives to use power in order to remain free is just too big.

It appears your argument against prosecuting criminal politicians boils down to being afraid of their power and what would happen if you did? Seems like a weak argument from authority.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#102

Post by 7952 »

nkkollaw wrote: post #36

What is the real reason behind surveillance? The government(s)'s excuse is terrorism, but terrorism in Europe doesn't kill a big enough amount of people to justify these drastic measures. I would argue also that no one has proven that it's efficient at preventing terrorist attacks. There must be a reason, I don't get it. Is it just because governments can, so they do it? It is to create the basis for some initiative…

It is possible that surveillance really is useful in preventing terrorism. And it would seem cheaper and easier to do than human intelligence.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#103

Post by notahacker »

crdoconnor wrote: post #86
notahacker wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The election result was likely considerably more influenced by the government unwisely deciding to base their entire election campaign around empty slogans about a Brexit nearly half the population had voted against including most of the typical swing voters, allowing Corbyn to position himself more as the reasonable candidate whose manifesto actually offered tangible promises. The populist rhetoric came before the m…

>Corbyn to position himself more as the reasonable candidate whose manifesto actually offered tangible promises. This position is largely what the Blairite wing of the party were rebelling against. They wanted to run on a strongly anti-Brexit platform with slightly watered down tory policies. The Lib Dems conveniently demonstrated how deeply unpopular that platform was outside of the London remainer bubble. Getting t…

Not convinced that HN is really the venue for detailed tangential discussion of UK politics, but no intellectually honest assessment of Labour's internal debate starts from the assumption that what the "Blairite wing", headed up by the individual that actually deposed Tony Blair(!), really objected to was Corbyn 2017 manifesto innovations like universal free school meals and tuition fee abolution and er.. matching Tory tax cuts for those on £55-70k per annum and dropping Miliband's much-trumpeted "Mansion Tax".

There's a reason why they had a lot of negative stuff to say about Corbyn's long track record of opposing Labour leaders, his gaffe-prone communication style in the media and lack of communication internally, his "anti-imperialist" foreign policy, him applying considerably more caveats to his "endorsements" of the EU than those of Hamas and Latin American dictatorships, his fondness for surrounding himself with obscure Marxists from outside the party and the party's poor performance in polls and yet even those who'd walked out on the party had few objections to the manifesto.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#104

Post by shaki-dora »

turc1656 wrote: post #42

"Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful. This judgement tells ministers in crystal clear terms that they are breaching the public’s human rights." So the question then remains...where are the handcuffs?! I ask this question constantly when it comes to government wrongdoing and there is almost never anyone charged with anything. If the government has been acting in a…

Not all trials are criminal. In fact, the vast majority are civil. To expose elected politicians to criminal liability would completely stymie them: laws are routinely struck down for all sorts of reasons, and it would be almost impossible for a single parliamentarian (who usually has a staff of two or three, max) to foresee all challenges.

I know this "Snooper's Charter" evokes strong feelings, which makes it a bad example.

The courts also have enough power already to make their judgements stick. Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in the US, and it didn't take any jail sentences to make that right a reality, even though roughly 40% of the population are vehemently opposed.

To see a particularly crass example that comes close to your fantasy, see Joe Arpaio, one of the very few politicians to actually defy a court long enough to be convicted of criminal charges.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#105

Post by Silhouette »

guiriduro wrote: post #89
mabbo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corbyn is unfortunately unassailable at the moment But... Why? I don't have a horse in this race at all, but Corbyn just doesn't seem to be able to win. He seems so uncharismatic. The last election wasn't so much him gaining seats as it was May losing them. With a minority government, May's days are numbered. It feels to me like the time to replace Corbyn is now, before the next election.

> I don't have a horse in this race at all Yeah right, you come only to bury caesar. I'll admit my bias, I'm a fan. And I don't think you can write off Corbyn's coming from well behind, daily attacks from all the centre and rightwing press as if he were the antichrist or some antisemitic Stalinist, as well as attacks from the Blairite dead in his own party, to beat all the critics and deprive "strong and stable" May…

Labour under Corbyn look much more like a government than the Tories, frankly.

But again, how much of that is just because May has been such a disaster?

Corbyn's Labour might look like the government-in-waiting by default, but that's partly because they've got very good at either not committing on controversial subjects or having policies that have a very visible upside that they've promoted while they gloss over serious downsides. None of that will be sustainable if they actually form a government.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#106

Post by lucozade »

turc1656 wrote: post #42

"Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful. This judgement tells ministers in crystal clear terms that they are breaching the public’s human rights." So the question then remains...where are the handcuffs?! I ask this question constantly when it comes to government wrongdoing and there is almost never anyone charged with anything. If the government has been acting in a…

> Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful

Except that's not what happened. Not legally anyway. What happened is that the Court of Appeal ruled that a Parliamentary Act did not contain sufficient safeguards to be compliant with the Human Rights Act.

So there's, at least, 2 problems you've got. One is that it's not, technically, government legislation. It's the Crown's legislation as enacted by Parliament. Secondly, and slightly less importantly, the Court of Appeal isn't the final arbiter here. One can either argue that it's the European Court of Justice or, and this is where it gets fun, Parliament.

Now, you can of course make a case for banging the Queen away. It's not like that hasn't been tried in the past with some of her predecessors. Or you could make a cases for locking up some or all of both Houses of Parliament. Or they could enact an amendment to correct the problem.

Of course, if it turns out that anyone was actually affected by the legislation as it stands then that should be dealt with as a matter of urgency. While the internet happily chunters on.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#107

Post by shaki-dora »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #101
dalbasal wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... These are the (large) cracks in rule of law that no one has ever managed to close entirely. It's dangerous to criminalise political tier decisions and actions, just like it's dangerous to prosecute former politicians. It harms the ability to preserve peaceful transitions. Criminals or not. First, it opens a door to political purging. Also incentives to use power in order to remain free is just too big.

It appears your argument against prosecuting criminal politicians boils down to being afraid of their power and what would happen if you did? Seems like a weak argument from authority.

"Argument from authority" means something entirely different, although your use here is somewhat amusing.

You're also misunderstanding the argument: It's not the powerful politicians that are frightening, it's the powerless. By prosecuting (former) politicians, you're not creating disincentives against abuse of power, you're disincentivising loss of power.

That's the hard-to-accept logic behind the mostly deferential treatment the Nixons and Mugabes of the world today get after they lost power.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#108

Post by shaki-dora »

benevol wrote: post #29

What we have learned thanks to Snowden is this: You can never trust your government. Mass surveillance was conducted illegally before and continues to this day. Does anyone really think some "law" will change this?

If this cynical point-of-view were true, why would they even bother with laws such as the one discussed here?

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#110

Post by TorKlingberg »

> The three judges said Dripa was “inconsistent with EU law” because of this lack of safeguards, including the absence of “prior review by a court or independent administrative authority”.

I imagine the government knows exactly how to take care of the pesky little problem of EU law giving people rights.

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