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

theguardian.com

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

#31

Post by junto »

KwanEsq wrote: post #11
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…

Whilst I am not endorsing the view, I would like to point out that Operation Northwoods–style false‐flag attacks are not a necessary reading of the grandparent's post. It would also be satisfied by the government/security services being aware of a planned attack by actual criminals, and simply letting it happen rather than preventing it as would otherwise be done.

Correct. I can't imagine that a government would be so morally corrupt as to incite, finance and source weapons for Islamic extremists that they then unleash on their own citizens, and then make sure they they all get shot during the rescue to make sure they never talk.

I can imagine that the security agencies make mistakes. I can also imagine that they don't always effectively manage and identify the correct intelligence. Whilst blanket surveillance provides you to monitor all the things, it just makes the haystack bigger. Good intelligence and reliable sources on the other hand (which require smart man-power), is costly and laborious. It helps you know in which bale in the haystack you should be taking a closer look at.

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

#32

Post by xyzzy123 »

7952 wrote: post #29
peteretep wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whe…

You're being downvoted unfairly IMHO. I'm against the status quo, but the people in these organisations tend to believe they're doing the right thing. They're not scofflaws, but they are isolated and insulated.

There are a lot of legal exemptions for agencies, but they are well aware they're not above the law. The public scrutiny will create genuine headaches for them, and I can guarantee you right now that there are a lot of people whose sole job is to ensure that they meet directives.

They're not gonna change international agreements over it though.

I am surprised that people on HN aren't seeing this for the genuine victory it is; only law can bind these entities, and it's not a quick process. This is the process working, as well as it ever does (for ill and good).

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

#33

Post by Allower »

Terrible and completely misleading headline. The court ruled that the SHARING of surveillance data with NSA was unlawful until this past December. Its another meaningless verdict that effectively supports the gross invasion of individual privacy while claiming to oppose it.

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

#34

Post by DanBC »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #32
7952 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whe…

You're being downvoted unfairly IMHO. I'm against the status quo, but the people in these organisations tend to believe they're doing the right thing. They're not scofflaws, but they are isolated and insulated. There are a lot of legal exemptions for agencies, but they are well aware they're not above the law. The public scrutiny will create genuine headaches for them, and I can guarantee you right now that there are…

> but the people in these organisations tend to believe they're doing the right thing. They're not scofflaws, but they are isolated and insulated.

I agree. They think they're following UK law. Here's an article from Grauniad which supports that: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/legal-loopholes-gc...

> The briefings, which are entitled UK Operational Legalities, stress that GCHQ "is an organisation with a highly responsible approach to compliance with the law".

> GCHQ also has a well staffed legal team, known as OPP-LEG, to help staff navigate their way through the complexities of the law.

> But there appears to be some nervousness about Tempora. In a paper written for National Security Agency (NSA) analysts entitled A Guide to Using Internet Buffers at GCHQ, the author notes: "[Tempora] represents an exciting opportunity to get direct access to enormous amounts of GCHQ's special source data.

> "As large-scale buffering of metadata and content represent a new concept for GCHQ's exploitation of the internet, GCHQ's legal and policy officers are understandably taking a careful approach to their access and use."

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

#35

Post by lifeisstillgood »

So roughly speaking, the US could spy on the UK but when they shared the data with the UK it was illegal for the UK authorities to "solicit, receive, store and transmit" that data.

However they previously had said that the new process of sharing data was now legal. In order to comply with the law GCHQ and the NSA have ... Made public the fact they are sharing information and how much.

Yeah, please take that one to a higher court and decide not on narrow technicalities but should we be doing this at all?

I am rather proud of Liberty (who I used to work for (IT and campaigns it's fun!) - it took a long time to get here.

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

#36

Post by thatsjustcrazy »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #5
junto wrote: post #3

Whilst I applaud the ruling, I doubt it will make much of difference. The British government simply uses extensions to the "temporary" Terrorism Act 2000 and its modifications in 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2008 and/or RIPA. I'm getting a bit tired of politicians standing up in the House of Common's, stating we need a "temporary" act to reduce liberty and privacy under the guise of terrorism, only to extend the rulings inde…

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…

Guess you've never heard of Operation Gladio. Yes, these things have happened and will continue to happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

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

#37

Post by socksy »

Flimm wrote: post #21
socksy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah, shame.

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

#40

Post by DanBC »

mike_hearn wrote: post #27
peteretep wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> and the "law" in this case says that GCHQ can do pretty much whatever it likes.

No it doesn't!

Oversight might have failed but there are laws and GCHQ are expected to obey those laws.

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