UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#141

Post by jpgvm » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 9:26 PM UTC

grkvlt wrote: post #109

TeMPOraL wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the secret laws are actually out there, what conclusion does this fact support?

What 'secret laws' are you talking about? No such thing exists in the UK, at least. Is there not a similar process for creating legislation publicly in the USA?

Many countries have secret laws unfortunately. The US is especially bad because they hide their secret laws behind a veil of "nation security" when they clearly have no requirement to do so. They legalise these secret laws through a secret court.. once again justified with "nation security". Mind you, a secret court whose judges are appointed by the executive.

How are we meant to hold our elected representatives accountable when the goings on of these secret courts are not even open to them? How can this possibly be a democracy if we don't have the slightest say in what our executive does in our name?

So no, we don't live in a democracy anymore. Long live congress and God bless America.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#142

Post by easytiger » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

easytiger wrote: post #64

Nursie wrote: post #7

The political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. As was the press silence (other than the Guardian). The press in this country are far more interested in reality tv, political infighting, fanning flames about 'immigrants' and what the royals are up to. And I suspect it's because most of the public don't care either. There are people who would like privacy, who think that GCHQ should be accountable and then th…

> political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. The UK Government does not comment on issues of national security. End of discussion.

who downvoted? do explain?

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#143

Post by grkvlt » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 10:31 PM UTC

jpgvm wrote: post #141

grkvlt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What 'secret laws' are you talking about? No such thing exists in the UK, at least. Is there not a similar process for creating legislation publicly in the USA?

Many countries have secret laws unfortunately. The US is especially bad because they hide their secret laws behind a veil of "nation security" when they clearly have no requirement to do so. They legalise these secret laws through a secret court.. once again justified with "nation security". Mind you, a secret court whose judges are appointed by the executive. How are we meant to hold our elected representatives acco…

I'm not sure that what you are talking about are things that are in the same category as the rest of the laws of either the UK or the US. For some rule to be classified as law, a bill must be passed by the legislative body of the government and added to the statute books; this is a public process.

There are other things that a court can use when deciding the outcome of some argument, perhaps the text of a contract or a set of rules that govern national security proceedings. In the same sense that the rules under which an employment or arbitration tribunal/panel operate under, these are not 'laws'. You cannot be prosecuted for breaking them, and so on.

So, while there are these extra rules that govern national security matters, and courts can decide on matters relating to these rules, with the entire thing being secret, which seems right and proper since they govern classified (or secret) matters.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#144

Post by csandreasen » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 11:29 PM UTC

justincormack wrote: post #19

csandreasen wrote: post #17

The section regarding external communications starts on page 37. The same document seems to contradict this article's premise: (from p.41) "Despite the fact that some UK to UK communications may be intercepted under section 8(4) warrants and that common uses of the internet by persons in the British Islands, such as a Google search, a Facebook post, or a "tweet" on Twitter, may entail the making of "external communic…

It goes on though to say that tweets are posted to a US platform, not an individual, so they all count as external. Only email from one person to another both in the UK is "internal" but they admit it will be collected anyway, but say they can't look at it.

Well, yeah - with regards to it being an "external" communication, they say that on p.37 (as I said in my post). The document starts talking about the differences between internal and external communications on p.37 and how a tweet that isn't directed to another British citizen is considered an external communication because the server is in the US. They then continue by saying on p.41 that even though that tweet is an external communication, they still aren't authorized to intercept it unless it's "necessary" under section RIPA 5(6)(a) and the tweet also isn't authorized for "selection for examination" unless it meets other criteria under RIPA section 16.

The article is focusing on the fact that the tweet is an external communication and neglecting to mention that there are still additional restrictions on collecting external communications. What Charles Farr is saying in that document is a far cry from the article's wording: "By defining the use of ‘platforms’ such as Facebook, Twitter and Google as ‘external communications’, British residents are being deprived of the essential safeguards that would otherwise be applied to their communications - simply because they are using services that are based outside the UK."

(After skimming through RIPA, though, I will concede that UK laws can be very obtuse. Section 16 gave me a headache - but that's an entirely different issue than the external communication argument)

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#145

Post by Nursie » Wed, Jun 18, 2014, 7:08 AM UTC

grkvlt wrote: post #132

alandarev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noone has mentioned there that they are afraid of their loveletters to be publicly available, as a consequence of surveilance. (It is possible, but whatever) Instead, our problem, is that surveilance is being used as a an invaluable tool for autocracy. And the question is not whether they will use surveilance for oppressing government opposition, but when if not already.

I think that is a good question. And if there were ever a case of surveillance being used to suppress government opposition, that would be terrible. But this has not occurred, and opposition to the government is a protected and valued right of every citizen of both the UK and the US. There are even entire organisations devoted to the opposition of the current government, some in the UK even go as far as having a 'sha…

You've not heard about the police embedding undercover officers into protest groups then? And acting as agent provocateurs when embedded within them? To the extent some of them had sham relationships and are now being pursued for effectively rape?

Maybe that's not surveillance being used to suppress in your book. Whatever. Your post reads like propaganda though.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#146

Post by Nursie » Wed, Jun 18, 2014, 7:20 AM UTC

grkvlt wrote: post #139

Nursie wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In short; it's not all about you, your vote is worth exactly one other vote. And how the hell am I supposed to know what I'm voting for? This is the problem. There has been no discussion. There is no mandate from the public at large, it's all secret programs, secret laws and secret trials. It's sick, and it's not democratic.

> secret laws Can you explain how a secret law could ever exist?

Yes. A law could be a secret law if it was not created in a public way but was still acted upon by the authorities as if it were any other law.

It's an easy concept.

If you don't think we have secret laws then that's a debate we can have, but please don't pretend not to understand the idea. We have secret courts. We have people unable to know the charges or evidence against them. We have press gags on reporting what some court cases are about (let alone the evidence or the defendents' identities), we have press gags on even reporting that some cases exist! We have security services operating beyond any democratic legal mandate based on political 'guidance'. These effectively make up a secret and hidden system of law.

You obviously need to read more Kafka.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#147

Post by ZenPro » Wed, Jun 18, 2014, 8:03 AM UTC

I have just re-read this entire thread in its entirety and once again a potentially valuable debate about the limits of police and intelligence services have devolved into a stunningly naive rant centring around -

> The Islamic Terrorist threat is made up > The Government is a homogenous entity that cannot be trusted. It is definitely not a disparate group of people and organisations trying to make an effective and functioning society. It is sinister > Intelligence services watch your children naked. Seriously - this is disturbingly dark. In nealty 10 years of service neither I or anyone I ever met in my employment ever saw a child naked. Honestly; that comment hints at real psychological problems. > Government oversight of communications travelling along copper wires is the same as pre-WW2 Nazi Germany > Assertions we live in a police state etc etc. Which is hilarious because I have been to actual police states and very few people assert online they live in a police state. You know, on account of that not being wise in an actual police state.

I could go on but this is beyond absurd.

Privacy concerns? Legitimate. Anything else? Hollywood-isation of actual intelligence work. 99% of it is seriously boring and no one gives a fuck what porn you watch. Bit busy trying to stop actual people getting killed.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#148

Post by quasque » Wed, Jun 18, 2014, 2:47 PM UTC

ionised wrote: post #129

quasque wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your beliefs are wrong, as we have been shown that this mass surveillance has failed to prevent even one terrorist attack since its inception. We don't actually know this. Mass surveillance may have led to 'extrajudicial' methods of thwarting terrorist attacks, i.e. death squads or drone killings. Or when cases of terrorist plots have been taken to trial, its use could have been masked by parallel construction of e…

You could be right. I'm just not sure how much 'we can't reveal that due to national security concerns' is going to fly as an excuse anymore. Far too many shady things can be covered up under that umbrella.

Oh, I agree. Just pointing out that mass surveillance may well be both helpful to national security and very damaging to human rights.

For what it's worth, I suspect it's unduly balanced towards authoritarianism as well.