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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

#141

Post by whywhywhywhy »

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…

In the UK the police can knock on your door for an offensive Tweet. If what happens on the internet has such serious implications then so should abusing power on the internet like this.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#142

Post by wu-ikkyu »

dalbasal wrote: post #120
mtgx wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we're talking about courts deciding to put politicians in prison here. And if somehow a political leader has managed to corrupt/threaten 3 court levels, then you've got bigger things to worry about, and chances are such a person would take other measures to get rid of his political opponents that are much faster. Also, it's not like you can't ever arrest a politician. There are laws and countries that do put poli…

It's not necessarily about corrupting the courts. It is about maintaining influence or outright control over police, prosecution, legislation or whatever body (very often a political body, as in The States) is responsible for investigating or prosecuting political offenses. In failed rule of law states, it has often happened that former politicians were/are criminalized. This can make losing power, in practice, direc…

>In failed rule of law states, it has often happened that former politicians were/are criminalized.

If they were "criminalized" and no one had the power to lock them up, there was no rule of law in the first place. There was a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy.

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea"

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#143

Post by Y_Y »

mtgx wrote: post #113
lucozade wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The ECJ has ruled less awful laws than this to be invalid under the fundamental charter of rights. I wouldn't be worried about them. It's the UK courts you have to worry about when deciding such cases, especially when the UK doesn't even have a constitution and they kind of play it by ear.

It absolutely does have a constitution. It's just not explicitly written down.

https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-co...

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#144

Post by notahacker »

crdoconnor wrote: post #119
notahacker wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 To…

Tony Blair stepped down under pressure from Gordon Brown with whom he'd already pre-arranged an exit and poor poll performance. Gordon Brown, who is his ideological brother, replaced him. Trying to characterize that as a deposal of Blair and everything he stood for is... oh, what's an appropriate phrase? Ah yes. Intellectually dishonest. Yes, it's true that not every policy Corbyn's 2017 manifesto had was unpopular w…

Blair stepped down after Tom Watson, the soft-left hardman mentioned upthread, organised an open letter demanding Blair's resignation, and loudly and publicly quit his own position when he didn't get a response. But it's amazing how those unfamiliar with party their history have reinvented him as an ardent Blairite for orchestrating the same sort of attempted coup the next time he thought the party needed a change of leader.

I don't think it's realistic to believe that a man whose only column inches for most of his thirty five year political career have been attacking every aspect of his party's foreign policy (from the justified to the ridiculous), speaking out with none of his usual caveats against the West at solidarity campaigns for the Cuban government and attending memorial ceremonies for terrorists isn't the initiator of all the foreign policy grandstanding. Or that having the odd good word to say about better relations with China (who, even?) is quite the level of blind spot as insisting the real problem with Hamas is that the British government doesn't understand its dedication to "bringing about long-term peace and social justice" at a Meet the Resistance fringe meeting. Or that the likes of Andrew Murray don't exist or have any influence, or spent 40 years in the CPGB because they were natural bedfellows of the soft left.

I'm not really sure that arguing that people might actually object to the stuff they complain about and not the stuff they don't is likely to fall on anything other than deaf ears though...

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#145

Post by pwtweet »

lucozade wrote: post #106
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…

ECJ already ruled against the UK on this issue and because they did Tom Watson was able to apply to the UK courts (CoA) for a review of the legislation.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#146

Post by dsfyu404ed »

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?

Yes.

Slush funds are not unlimited.

Government agencies who want to do illegal things must do them with some level of restraint because reducing volume makes abuse and/or public knowledge of their actions less likely.

Illegal action is more costly at every step (you have to hide it and its paper trail).

Less abuse and smaller (illegal) programs means less opportunity for politicians to look good to the public by holding your agency accountable for violating the law.

Making stuff we don't want the gov to do illegal for the gov to do helps very much because it provides negative incentives for them to do those things so they are less likely to do those things in large volume.

Making something illegal for the gov to do is no different than writing a law that fines private companies for doing something bad. Sure they'll still do it when they think the rewards make it worth it but they'll do it a hell of a lot less overall.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#147

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #57
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…

> I would argue also that no one has proven that it's efficient at preventing terrorist attacks. What if arrests in terrorist investigations are kept under wraps though? If the public would hear of thwarted terrorist attacks on a regular basis, either they'd feel more and more unsafe - that is, the terrorists win - or the terrorists find out about other cells and find ways to circumvent detection.

If we were catching terrorists on the regular with programs enabled by these sorts of laws you can bet your ass they'd be trotting out each and every one of them in front of the press while singing praise to the dragnet programs that made it possible.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#148

Post by PJDK »

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…

What you're asking for is nothing like what this process is designed to be.

The Human Rights Act is designed as a way to allow courts to push back on certain kinds of legislation - this ruling is a normal part of the legislative process not any indication of criminal wrong doing by anyone.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#149

Post by blowski »

jstanley wrote: post #125
lucozade wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. How do you decide whether "anyone was actually affected" by ISPs storing as much browsing data as they can? Doesn't that affect either everyone or noone depending on whether you think it matters? And if it matters, does it not affect everyone? What can you possibly do a…

If Shirley lost £1,000,000 and a body part as a result of the ISP’s actions, she’s affected more than somebody who’s merely annoyed and feels their human rights have been breached.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#150

Post by 794CD01 »

jstanley wrote: post #125
lucozade wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. How do you decide whether "anyone was actually affected" by ISPs storing as much browsing data as they can? Doesn't that affect either everyone or noone depending on whether you think it matters? And if it matters, does it not affect everyone? What can you possibly do a…

They could give everyone a year of free credit monitoring.
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