Metropolitan Police Says They're 'Not Prepared' To Reveal How Often They Abuse Anti-Terror Law To Spy On Journalists
from the must-take-a-lot-of-time-to-count-'em-all-up dept
So we recently wrote about how the Metropolitan Police in the UK abused an anti-terror law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), to dig into a journalist's phone records without any judicial oversight as the police sought to minimize a scandal relating to an incident (Plebgate) involving the police. That led many to wonder just how often the police abuse that law to get records from journalists with no oversight. The answer appears to be "screw you, we're not saying." Or the equivalent of that with a friendly British accent:Asked how many times they have used Ripa to seize telephone or email records belonging to journalists, Scotland Yard said: “We are not prepared to discuss.”The line between "not prepared" and "oh fuck, we don't have to reveal that, do we?" appears to be fairly blurry.
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Filed Under: journalists, metropolitan police, privacy, ripa, scotland yard, surveillance
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Let loose the hounds...
If they aren't willing to answer the question, odds are it's because the number is rather high, or at least significantly higher than they think they could successfully justify before a real court.
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Re: Let loose the hounds...
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Re: Let loose the hounds...
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It is the key that unlocks all of the behavior that is against the rights people thought that had and should really make them wonder when they slid into a dictatorship that America would be bombing if only they had oil.
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Re: Because Terrorism.
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Re: Re: Because Terrorism.
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the world is becoming worse by the day and it's not just because of disgraceful acts performed by terrorists, it's the similarity between what terrorists do and our very own law enforcement services. no democratic, self respecting country should be afraid of what might happen if you're stopped by a police officer. you could end up on a cold slab down the morgue, like so many more seem to these days!
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How can you possible call this a 'Police State'?
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I meet the other criteria easily enough but still worry when I'm out taking pictures.
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When will they ever learn?
When will these institutions get that? #holdingbreath
(I know, they won't, probably ever)
When you do bad stuff, the bad stuff gets discussed in the media. The simple solution?
Do good/the right stuff.
(and yes, it is that easy)
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Re: When will they ever learn?
The public that cares to know is a miniscule part of the population. So small as to be easily ignored by the government and political parties in general.
All they need to do is pay lip services to privacy and then scream "terrorism" or "for the children" and then the majority of the population are satisfied.
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They asked the question wrong , It should have been asked , out of all the journalists , how many haven't you used Ripa seizures of telephone and emails on.
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Whoever had the guts to ask that question better have clean phone records.
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It might be an accurate answer
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Re: It might be an accurate answer
We have done it so many times we have literally lost count and are not prepared to reveal an answer to that question!
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Re: It might be an accurate answer
'While yes we may have scooped up an absolutely insane amount of personal data, it would be a violation of people's privacy if we actually went through and counted how many have had their privacy violated by us!'
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I somehow doubt their internal affairs division is going to sit up and take notice of the departments criminality from this problem.
Do a crime that would get a regular citizen sent away for life, get a promotion. Beat someone to death, get paid leave while they sort you did nothing wrong. Claim they feared for their lives and that trumps the law they have no clue about and yet they somehow represent.
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History
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That's fine
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