Humiliating Admission By UK Government That Yet More Of Its Surveillance Was Unlawful
from the well,-not-*completely*-legal dept
A couple of weeks ago, we reported on a small but important defeat for the UK government when the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled that intelligence sharing between the NSA and GCHQ was unlawful. Now, in a sign that the cracks in the UK's impenetrable silence on its surveillance activities are beginning to spread, the Guardian reports on the following surprising development:
The regime under which UK intelligence agencies, including MI5 and MI6, have been monitoring conversations between lawyers and their clients for the past five years is unlawful, the British government has admitted.
Here's why the UK government has suddenly started owning up to these misdeeds:
The admission that the regime surrounding state snooping on legally privileged communications has also failed to comply with the European convention on human rights comes in advance of a legal challenge, to be heard early next month, in which the security services are alleged to have unlawfully intercepted conversations between lawyers and their clients to provide the government with an advantage in court.
Remarkably, the confession has brought with it an unprecedented explanatory statement:
"In view of recent IPT judgments, we acknowledge that the policies adopted since [January] 2010 have not fully met the requirements of the ECHR, specifically article 8 (right to privacy). This includes a requirement that safeguards are made sufficiently public.
This surprise admission shows once again the value of taking legal action against government surveillance, even when the odds of succeeding seem slim. Twice now the UK has revealed details purely as a result of challenges. Perhaps even more importantly, twice now the UK government's standard response to leaks -- that it wouldn't confirm or deny anything, but the British public could rest assured that whatever may have happened was completely legal -- has been shown to be false.
"It does not mean that there was any deliberate wrongdoing on their part of the security and intelligence agencies, which have always taken their obligations to protect legally privileged material extremely seriously. Nor does it mean that any of the agencies' activities have prejudiced or in any way resulted in an abuse of process in any civil or criminal proceedings."
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Filed Under: abuse, attorney client privilege, gchq, human rights, mi5, mi6, nsa, privacy, surveillance, uk
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Re:
I think not?
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Mixed messages
"It does not mean that there was any deliberate wrongdoing on their part of the security and intelligence agencies, which have always taken their obligations to protect legally privileged material extremely seriously. Nor does it mean that any of the agencies' activities have prejudiced or in any way resulted in an abuse of process in any civil or criminal proceedings."
So unlawful, but not actually wrong... well, good to know the UK government has finally come forward and admitting that they see nothing wrong in breaking the law. Really, it's a refreshing bit of honesty from a government spokesman.
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Re: Mixed messages
Of course, it also doesn't have the logical consequence that it wasn't deliberate - and it very much has the inference that it was.
The semantic content of their caveat is, unsurprisingly, null.
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lets invade the UK for terrorism
from the yokes of terrorism by its govt
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Re: lets invade the UK for terrorism
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also, i would like to know how what is going on at the moment is different to what was going on up to December 2014? the UK government spying then was ruled illegal up to December, but isn't since, so what is the difference in what they are doing, how and why?
i then would like to know exactly what this spying has done to keep the UK citizens safe? i'll bet those citizens are no more safe than they would have been without the spying, just like the US citizens if the NSA hadn't been spying us.
how many terrorist attacks have been foiled, and i mean genuine attacks, not the made up shit ones that the NSA and FBI have come out with! i'll bet there are none! and the reason being i'll again bet that the terrorists wouldn't be so stupid as to contact each other in 'plain view' methods or with 'plain view' text! on top of that, the amount of data that is collected 1 day, would take years for even a computer to sift through looking for key words! i somehow doubt that any terrorist group would plan and converse about an attack that was planned for 2025, would you?
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Re:
If they wanted to convince us that they are justified in any of it, you would think they would provide examples of attacks they have actually stopped.
Instead they provide claims that are false and vaguely stating that they have stopped attacks that would chill our bones, without providing examples.
I get that they can't give out all the details and I am not demanding they release the names and addresses of all the agents involved, but if the world is really that dangerous to upend all of our principals, they could certainly give us something concrete.
So either there is nothing to provide us with, or they think that they don't need to convince us and just do what they damn well please.
It looks more and more like it is both.
Maybe they are just terrible at marketing.
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Re:
"After a thorough review we admit that . Nothing to see here.
We hope that deals with your concerns in the matter. If not, then you can off"
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Not Deliberate....
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Ignorance of the law is no excuse!*
LEOs, district attorneys, judges, elected officials and their families, elected officials family's families, celebrities that are likable, the 1% and their families, kittens, puppies, employees of 3-letter-orgs (both acknowledged and disavowed) and their families with pets included, Bob, and that guy the looks familiar but who's name you can't quite place.
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Re: Ignorance of the law is no excuse!*
Anyone who helps write or enforce laws.
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And we ask, why can't we?
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And So, the result of all of this not-deliberately breaking the law
This is a sad sad time.
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'Fair Trial'
Not that I forsee any trials collapsing or verdicts being revisited, of course.
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Re: 'Fair Trial'
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WTF
Thats exactly what it means, what are we, in fucking opposite world or something, thats EXACTLY what your actions communicate..........you've done wrong, trying to salvage ANYTHING tells me you have'nt really learned, which means unless meaningfull change happens to stop abuse, you'll end up doing it again......thats assuming you ever stop.........the empires have created the environment where such things are deemed "necasary", it is entirely your fault, and were suppose to suffer for your global childish games, BOTH SIDES, will we fuck
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Maybe they saw all these 3rd world dictatorships and thought "I got to get in on that action"
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Re: Re:
Freedom is slavery. Slavery is freedom. Move along, citizen.
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Power corrupts
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Defense Opening Statement - Open and Shut Case!
In view of recent rape cases, I acknowledge that my client's policies as a serial rapist have not fully met the requirements of British law.
It does not mean there was any deliberate wrongdoing on my client's part, as he have always taken his obligations to follow the law extremely seriously."
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Advice to current administration
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Because we are king and your the serfs
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British intelligence are criminals
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You know what this means? Not only did they break the law, they did it for no other reason than because they could. They didn't even use the information for anything.
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Absolutely true! This is best possible closing statement for this article. Not only is the UK government lying. The Intercept's story about the NSA stealing all the private SIM card encryption keys for cellphones by stalking and hacking SIM card manufacturing employees. Proves the NSA and White House are also lying when stating that they only target "unlawful" individuals.
Of course we already knew this after Angela Merkel was spied on. I don't believe she's a terrorist. The truth of the matter is the NSA and GCHQ spy on everyone. They don't need a reason to spy, and they're not bound by any laws. Quite simply, they're rogue agencies running amok worldwide.
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