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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

#181

Post by Sean1708 »

ninkendo wrote: post #178
Sean1708 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only explanation I can think of is if censorship and surveillance are just being casually lumped together The chart is literally titled "Internet censorship and surveillance by country (2014)" with categories that don't differentiate between censorship and surveillance, so I'm relatively certain that the two have been lumped together.

Sure, but that doesn’t imply that there’s an equivalency between the two, or that the grading scale should be course-grained enough to show no difference between the U.S. and China. If I made an article called “human rights violations and numbers of reality tv shows by country” and painted Saudi Arabia and Germany the same color, it should rightly raise some eyebrows.

All I was saying was that you didn't need to speculate, not that it was the right way to present the data.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#182

Post by vidarh »

barrkel wrote: post #31
vidarh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more Labour members supporting Corbyn than there were Labour members total before Corbyn became leader. Labour will never be unified as long as there is first past the post in the UK, and currently at least the left of the party dominates the membership. Any challenger to Corbyn at this point would depend on the support of the left of the party even more than during the last challenge.

Polarization of the main parties is creating big democratic deficits in UK governance. The Tory party membership is heavily skewed towards Brexit despite it having a razor thin majority in the country; while Labour is heavily skewed towards Marxists, despite Britain being roughly centre-right throughout its modern history, by European standards. As a result, neither parties have natural constituencies in the electora…

The Marxists in Labour are few and far between and far to the left of Corbyn. The fantasy that Labour is heavily skewed towards Marxist is just that. Most Labour MPs are more opposed to Marxism than to the Tories, and unlike most social democratic parties in Europe, Labour has never had a tradition of Marxism (though it has been more left wing that today) - there has been a schism between Marxism and more methodist inspired socialism in the UK dating back to before Labour was founded.

> And of course Corbyn is completely out of whack with his membership, being pro-Brexit while the party is heavily for Remain.

He voted Remain, campaigned for Remain, and made it clear he'd vote Remain again (unlike May who "refuses to answer hypothetical questions" for fear of angering people). On what basis do you claim he is pro-Brexit?

Brexit, however is official party policy that he does not have authority to alter on his own and is obliged by party rules to follow, for the simple reason that it'd be political suicide for Labour to oppose is as long as the majority of those Labour seats that are at risk are in Leave heavy areas. Labour has the choice between continuing down that route and try to moderate the Tories and hopefully get more room to maneuver and a shot at government, or start pushing a Remain line and lose rather than gain seats next election - Labours Remain-heavy constituencies are mostly seats that are safe.

> Remain effectively doesn't have democratic representation, and nor does the business-focused middle ground.

We agree on that, but that is the cost we pay for an undemocratic electoral system - if Labour where to go Remain, it would not make a difference - Labour would simply lose a ton of seats.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#183

Post by lucozade »

Y_Y wrote: post #143
mtgx wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It absolutely doesn't. It's not written down because it doesn't exist.

All that article is doing is listing some Acts that contain portions that Brits tend to take more seriously than, say, the Dangerous Dogs Act.

But here's the important bit. Legally, it's no harder to repeal the Bill of Rights that it is to repeal the mangy mutts act.

For example, Parliamentary sovereignty is considered sacrosanct in our constitution. Except we have fairly regularly given it away in Acts and are, presumably, going to get some back in another one because of Brexit.

And Brexit is going to happen because we, randomly, had a referendum about it. In most countries, fundamentally restructuring almost all our treaty obligations of the last 40 years would have a higher threshold than muzzling Rottweilers. Not so in Blighty.

Now, I happen to think that that's not necessarily a bad thing (OK, I think Brexit was scandalous). But we clearly don't have a constitution in any reasonable sense.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#184

Post by lucozade »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #163
lucozade wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure a constitution necessarily helps. In this case, the Human Rights legislation is acting like a constitution in the sense that it's a benchmark that laws are being held to. A constitution can sometimes be a fairly negative thing. You regularly see US decisions being made against the Constitution where it blatantly isn't applicable. You rarely (ever?) see SCOTUS saying that the Constitution doesn't apply so it…

What would it mean for the US Constitution not to apply to a law within the US? For a federal law, either it's within Congress's specifically enumerated and limited powers (as interpreted by SCOTUS) and therefore valid, or else the law is invalid. For a state law, the US Supreme Court will only base their ruling on the US Constitution if anything legally binding at the federal level (including but not limited to the…

As an obvious example, the 5th Amendment blatantly didn't have anything to do with passwords. The whole idea is a bit silly. The sensible thing to do would be to say that the Constitution has nothing much to say on many issues relating to modern technology and deal with it accordingly.

Same goes with guns. If you want everyone to be armed then fine. That's your prerogative. But the Constitution clearly didn't mean for everyone and their mom to be tooled up with semi-automatic weaponry. I mean, just how legal are militias in the US? Because they're the reason you should be carrying.

It was clearly a document of its time. And one of international importance. But the religious zeal to which it is adhered to is highly questionable.

Now, it's not like we're perfect in the UK or anything. But if someone tried to justify something to do with smartphones or terrorism by referencing Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, we'd probably take a step back and give them a napkin for the mouth frothing.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#185

Post by Y_Y »

lucozade wrote: post #183
Y_Y wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely does have a constitution. It's just not explicitly written down. https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-co...

It absolutely doesn't. It's not written down because it doesn't exist. All that article is doing is listing some Acts that contain portions that Brits tend to take more seriously than, say, the Dangerous Dogs Act. But here's the important bit. Legally, it's no harder to repeal the Bill of Rights that it is to repeal the mangy mutts act. For example, Parliamentary sovereignty is considered sacrosanct in our constituti…

I can see why you'd say that, but in terms of usage you'll give yourself at odds with the uk parliament and legal system. [0]

In fact the uk constitution predates most of the neat written ones.

[0] www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/whatis/uk-constitution

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#186

Post by pmyteh »

turc1656 wrote: post #80
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.

I agree with you generally, but not in this case. Anyone with a double digit IQ should have been able to know that this was illegal. This wasn't one of those gray areas where federal agents are wondering how far their power goes. A simple comprehension of basic human rights as they have been acknowledged formally in law should lead any decent, reasonable person to conclude these surveillance programs were seriously a…

It's not quite obvious. British constitutional theory holds Parliament to be completely sovereign - so the concept of an illegal piece of statute law is a bit alien.

The only real constraints on Parliament's freedom of legislation are the body of EU law, and the European Convention on Human Rights. The former is variously directly and indirectly applicable in UK law, and the latter is enforced both by UK statute (which can be overridden by Parliament) and by oversight from an external court (which has limited enforcement powers).

I agree that the surveillance law is obviously bad policy, but it wasn't obviously in breach of either EU law or the ECHR. The English court of appeal thought that it wasn't, but referred it to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a binding opinion, because they decided the question was finely balanced. CJEU ruled that it was in breach of articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, so the Court of Appeal made a domestic declaration that the statute was in breach of EU law.

The full judgment is at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/70.html, if you're interested.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#187

Post by pbhjpbhj »

qubex wrote: post #168
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK the Queen passes the laws, so there seems no reason she couldn't issue a writ making particular actions of MPs unlawful. Presumably she doesn't because she rather likes the money and the palaces more than she wants to settle the question as to how you have a parliamentary democracy and monarchy with "you don't".

I don’t know if that is even possible within the confines of the UK’s latter-day (uncodified) constitutional monarchy, but the Queen resuming the practice of unilaterally imposing laws upon Parliament and the Realm at large would be one of the most terrifying regressions of the past several centuries. Besides, the scenario you depict further reinforces my argument that there’s a “trusted root” at the apex of our demo…

If the Queen imposed a requirement for MPs who sponsor laws to go to prison if those laws clearly beach the ECHR (or maybe HRA) who'd complain?

It's far less terrifying to me that the present Queen can do that than that any oligarch with a £100M to spare can probably "lobby" to get the changes they want.

The royal family are in a dicey position, but I trust the current Queen more than MP s in general, but perhaps less than the 2 Houses as a whole. She can probably do anything that goes with either Parliament OR with the demos but couldn't go against both.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#188

Post by barrkel »

vidarh wrote: post #182
barrkel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polarization of the main parties is creating big democratic deficits in UK governance. The Tory party membership is heavily skewed towards Brexit despite it having a razor thin majority in the country; while Labour is heavily skewed towards Marxists, despite Britain being roughly centre-right throughout its modern history, by European standards. As a result, neither parties have natural constituencies in the electora…

The Marxists in Labour are few and far between and far to the left of Corbyn. The fantasy that Labour is heavily skewed towards Marxist is just that. Most Labour MPs are more opposed to Marxism than to the Tories, and unlike most social democratic parties in Europe, Labour has never had a tradition of Marxism (though it has been more left wing that today) - there has been a schism between Marxism and more methodist i…

The man advocated buying houses for the homeless. How economically illiterate can you get beyond that?

(Yes, this is a bit of a trick question. It's a test of whether you understand second order effects or not; whether you support policies to address problems, vs policies that change outcomes.)

> On what basis do you claim he is pro-Brexit?

Primarily because he has not attacked any pro-Brexit policies and he is not opposing the main political goal of the opposition. The country effectively doesn't have an opposition.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#189

Post by hoopladler »

blowski wrote: post #149
jstanley wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The point about surveilance is it doesn't effect anyone, until it does - and then everybody gets arrested in the night. We're just a couple of decades out of the twentieth century - and if the more bloody-handed of the last century's regimes had today's databases, they would have been far worse.

Re: UK mass digital surveillance regime ruled unlawful

#190

Post by ahamedirshad123 »

goombastic wrote: post #177
ahamedirshad123 wrote: post #52

Aadhaar in India, hopefully!

Aadhaar in India is far worse. 99% of the data has leaked multiple times already. It also seems to sport all the classic signs of an amateur project. Post facto design changes, unauthenticated mails, unprofessional mobile apps, leaky access to all of the data irrespective of your need, terrible code (same hard coded passwords for everyone), cludgy design increments making the problems worse while not acknowledging ex…

Funny thing is NRIs, who don't have to enroll, are writing opinions to defend this.
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