Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#21

Post by Flimm »

socksy wrote: post #20
matthewmacleod wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspiracy theorist me says we should expect another "act of terrorism" on the UK mainland. This government needs to bolster its control, as they did in Australia, France and Canada. After every attack, the direct effect is that politicians start looking for ways to spin that into invasions of privacy and liberty. Every god damn time. I appreciate that you prefixed this, but are you really implying that the recent at…

It's not so much that such an attack would be created by the government (which if that's what GP is saying, then I utterly agree with you). It's more what's done after the attack — painting it as a terrorist attack in the first place, then arguing that it like all terrorist attacks could have been prevented if intelligence were more powerful, etc. I found it very interesting recently that the BBC has decided to stop…

This only applies to BBC Arabic.

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#22

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

peteretep wrote: post #6
zirkonit wrote: post #2

“was unlawful”, “is unlawful” and “will be unlawful”. It will not stop just because of the court decision. The rule of law is for mere mortals, and not the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies, unfortunately.

The UK has a pretty good track record of nobody being above the law.

Oh, really? http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec/15/saudiarabia.armstr...

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#23

Post by peteretep »

arethuza wrote: post #14
peteretep wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has a pretty good track record of nobody being above the law.

Lets see what happens to Tony Blair after the Chilcot inquiry report is published: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/07/tony-bl...

Can we also just take a moment to consider the monumental stupidity in accusing Blair of "war crimes" for "crimes against peace" by invoking the Nuremberg principles?? If it's "crime against peace", then it is - under the Nuremberg principles - not a war crime.

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#24

Post by arethuza »

peteretep wrote: post #23
arethuza wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets see what happens to Tony Blair after the Chilcot inquiry report is published: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/07/tony-bl...

Can we also just take a moment to consider the monumental stupidity in accusing Blair of "war crimes" for "crimes against peace" by invoking the Nuremberg principles?? If it's "crime against peace", then it is - under the Nuremberg principles - not a war crime.

Personally, I don't see what is stupid about charging him with an appropriate crime here in the UK (if there is one - IANAL) if he lied to parliament to start our involvement in a war.

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#25

Post by harkyns_castle »

peteretep wrote: post #10
jackgavigan wrote: post #9

So, one of the key things about this ruling is that it declares "that prior to the disclosures made and referred to in the Tribunal’s Judgment of 5 December 2014, the regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by US authorities pursuant to Prism and/or (on the Claimants’ case) Upstream, con…

I may be alone here, but while I don't always agree with the laws of the country, I want the government, army, police, and civil service to be acting inside those laws.

I think we've gone far beyond what anyone wants. I'm starting to be a bit surprised by the good news though, I'll take what I can get.

* Until such time as we can fix this mess.

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#26

Post by ommunist »

So, like @higherpurpose pointed out - ruling without enforcement is nothing in this case.

I seriously doubt GCHQ will transform their Cornwall facility into a tourist attraction like Bletchley Park, after NSA recently invested in it such fancy amounts of monies.

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#27

Post by mike_hearn »

peteretep wrote: post #6
zirkonit wrote: post #2

“was unlawful”, “is unlawful” and “will be unlawful”. It will not stop just because of the court decision. The rule of law is for mere mortals, and not the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies, unfortunately.

The UK has a pretty good track record of nobody being above the law.

This ruling is issued by a kangaroo court that isn't like a normal court, and the "law" in this case says that GCHQ can do pretty much whatever it likes. So I'm afraid this stuff moved outside the realm of law and democracy a long time ago.

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#28

Post by fauigerzigerk »

It is important to fight surveillance in the courts, but as they keep making ever more draconian and broad surveillance laws it will eventually become pointless. At the end of the day, this is a political question.

I'm not quite sure what we're dealing with here politically. I wonder whether this extent of surveillance is simply the will of the poeple or whether democracy has been subverted by a power hungry security aparatus.

Re: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

#29

Post by 7952 »

peteretep wrote: post #10
jackgavigan wrote: post #9

So, one of the key things about this ruling is that it declares "that prior to the disclosures made and referred to in the Tribunal’s Judgment of 5 December 2014, the regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by US authorities pursuant to Prism and/or (on the Claimants’ case) Upstream, con…

I may be alone here, but while I don't always agree with the laws of the country, I want the government, army, police, and civil service to be acting inside those laws.

I get the impression that the agencies actually do want to act legally. And the government go to great efforts to make sure that these kind of actions are legallised after the fact. I wouldn't be suprised if this ruling is used as an excuse to leave the ECHR.

Personally I think it is better to have tight laws that are sometimes broken than loose laws that authorize anything. I understand that there are situations where agents may have to break the law and should have a reasonable defence against prosecution (akin to self defence). Instead we get this world in which these grey areas are ignored to the detriment of everyone.

Post reply on HN