GCHQ Dinged For Illegally Holding Onto Human Rights Groups Emails Too Long, Not For Collecting Them In The First Place
from the that's-not-right dept
Following on a ruling nearly two months ago, where the UK's Investigatory Powers Tribunal -- for the very first time -- found that GCHQ had broken the law with its surveillance of client/attorney communications, now the IPT has ruled against GCHQ again. The IPT says that GCHQ held emails of human rights activists for too long -- but found that the initial collection of those emails was no problem at all.In respect of the Third Claimant (The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights), the Tribunal has found that email communications of the Third Claimant were lawfully and proportionately intercepted and accessed, pursuant to s.8(4) of RIPA. However, the time limit for retention permitted under the internal policies of GCHQ, the intercepting agency, was overlooked in regard to the product of that interception, such that it was retained for materially longer than permitted under those policies.So, no problem spying on human rights organizations -- just make sure you delete the emails within the allotted timeframe. And, of course, the court concludes that this is a pretty minor violation, given that there's no evidence anyone actually looked at the data after they should have destroyed it:
We are satisfied however that the product was not accessed after the expiry of the relevant retention time limit, and the breach can thus be characterised as technical...Still, it notes, even a technical breach is a breach and thus slaps GCHQ on the wrist. This seems like pretty weak sauce all around, but at the very least, the IPT is finally recognizing that GCHQ isn't following the law at times. It's not nearly enough, and the level of oversight is laughable. And, of course, none of these breaches, technical or otherwise, likely would have come to light at all without Ed Snowden.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: emails, gchq, human rights, investigatory powers tribunal, ipt, privacy
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This has to do with a fundamentally broken mindset: Where you or I might temporarily suspect someone of something, for them suspicion is a permanent condition. Where you or I might try to investigate and, finding nothing supportive, shrug our shoulders and move on; for them, an inability to prove their suspicions means they do not possess enough information.
So they're horribly concerned that, if they don't possess all information forever, someday they might not be able to prove Abu Uba is a money-laundering drug lord terrorist, by digging through and discovering something Abu's great grandfather's cousin's best friend might have said.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Double standards....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
well...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: well...
As for the backlash against spying, that's both a strawman, and a natural response to what has been done. Most people would probably agree that targeted surveillance is useful, it's the 'grab everything just in case' actions that people object to.
For those that do object to any surveillance, that's most likely due to the spy agencies poisoning the well of public opinion by spying on everyone, undermining safety, violating rights, and all that simply because they can. If you show that you can't responsibly handle something, don't be surprised that people might want to take it away from you, even if it can be useful if properly used.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: well...
Can you cite a source?
Looking at the organisations that brought these complaints forward, I doubt anyone could legitimately label them or their goals nefarious...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: well...
They do? I haven't seen that. What I have seen is that privacy advocates often fall into the mindset that surveillance is frequently misused and that ubiquitous surveillance isn't proper. Which is true.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]