
British Court Says Government’s Electronic Surveillance Is Legal - dnetesn
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/world/europe/british-court-says-governments-electronic-surveillance-is-legal.html?ref=technology
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KaiserPro
Just to clear things up, its not technically a court, its a quasi-judicial
body that is in charge of "policing" the RIPA (kinda like the patriot act)

They have limited scope, and act in a similar way to FISA.

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mingmecca
Throughout our history many dubious actions have been "legal" but not
necessarily right or just.

Stateside, hopefully the Supreme Court will side with privacy rights once
those cases wind their way through the courts.

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martindevans
"many dubious actions have been 'legal' but not necessarily right or just."

This.

It annoys me to no end when politicians insist that what the GCHQ is doing is
legal, which just makes it _worse_ \- because it means it's not just a single
agency overstepping its bounds and spying on us all, instead it's the entire
system which is warped.

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dragonwriter
> It annoys me to no end when politicians insist that what the GCHQ is doing
> is legal, which just makes it worse - because it means it's not just a
> single agency overstepping its bounds and spying on us all, instead it's the
> entire system which is warped.

If the GCHQ is acting in accordance with the law, even if the law is bad, then
there is accountability to the public through the Parliament, and presumably
the public, if they think the law is bad, can change the behavior by changing
the Parliament.

If the GCHQ is doing bad things independently and disregarding the law as
adopted by Parliament, then not only are the bad things being done as in the
above case, but there is a fundamental breakdown in democratic governance.

Since the problems in the latter are a superset of the problems in the former,
I'd say its hard to say that the former is worse.

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martindevans
My view is that if it were illegal then as soon as it became public knowledge
then effort would have been made to stop it. I.e. It's a breakdown of the
enforcing of the law but not a breakdown of the democratic process. Instead
we've had a couple of years where the only thing any politician ever says is
"well it's legal..." which _is_ a breakdown of the democratic process (since
the law in a democracy is meant to reflect the will of the people saying that
something the people are protesting shouldn't be legal is ok because it's
legal is clearly a non argument!)

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Sorgam
It does represent the will of the people. The people aren't voting for change
and didn't do so when any of the "draconian" laws were passed, despite it
being public knowledge. So this is perfectly what democracy is - popular
opinion, not special interests determining the laws. If you're sure your
fellow citizens are mostly wrong, then you should reconsider whether you fit
in among them. Maybe other countries have people who value privacy greater.
For UK citizens this is easy, just go to a European country.

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jeangenie
> It does represent the will of the people.

So you're saying the UK government held a vote asking "Do you want to be
surveilled?" and a majority of citizens answered in the affirmative? I can't
remember anything like that happening here in the US.

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pvnick
The thing about pervasive government surveillance is that we just can't trust
that the judges who decide their legality haven't been compromised. That's
what's so devastating about these programs - there is a distinct possibility
that their existence self-perpetuates by targeting those that would keep them
in check. The same should be considered if the US supreme court decides their
constitutionality [1].

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/supreme-court-
nsa_n...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/supreme-court-
nsa_n_5170559.html)

~~~
cmdkeen
Except, at least in the UK, judges have an ancient tradition of independence
from the executive and maintain considerable power. Judges at all levels up to
the Supreme Court regularly find against the government on all sorts of cases
include national security ones.

Attempting to intimidate a judge would be a shockingly risky thing to do,
because if the judge complained it would probably bring down the Government -
which is surprisingly easy thing to do if there's a major scandal with our
Parliamentary system. Let alone that appeals are made in front of several
judges the prospect of nobbling all of them seems remote to me.

It's a conspiracy theory too far, in the UK at least.

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medecau
The whole mass spying seemed like a conspiracy theory to most of us just few
years ago.

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krapp
The fact alone that a particular conspiracy theory turned out to be true
doesn't automatically lend credence to others.

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njharman
Yes it does. People dismiss conspiracy theories cause they're unbelievable.
When previously unbelievable becomes true it lifts bar of unbelievable.
Previous conspiracy theories now become possible even probable scenarios we
must guard against.

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krapp
I don't think it does.

People dismiss conspiracy theories because they're unbelievable _and_ exist
without any evidence to support them. The set of 'previous conspiracy
theories' encompasses literally every assertion every paranoid has ever made
about their government.

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rosser
There are some very interesting explorations to be had in the places where the
sets "things that are legal" and "things that are moral" _don 't_ intersect.

~~~
codezero
Or how about where things that are legal for the government to do and things
that are legal for citizens to do don't intersect :)

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known
"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."
\--Einstein

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higherpurpose
Is this the case that happened in closed Court? Either way, it seems Amnesty
wants to take it to ECHR, and if the case is accepted, I doubt it will stick -
not that UK seems to care much about ECJ/ECHR rulings. ECJ has also recently
declared data retention by carriers illegal, yet UK keeps doing it, while
actually trying to make those laws stronger.

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tomjen3
Of course a low-level court would say that. They are (if charitable) under the
same incentives as (if not charitable, they are in cahoots with) the rest of
the government. Heck they are the government.

What we need is independent review.

~~~
peteretep

        > They are (if charitable) under the same incentives as
        > (if not charitable, they are in cahoots with) the rest
        > of the government. Heck they are the government.
    

Ah yes, the old double-bind. When they agree with the Government, they're part
of the system, man, and whenever they disagree, it's Judicial Activism. O_o

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jqm
Dog bites man is not news. Still waiting for man bites dog.

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mckoss
Even if a British judicial review finds GCHQ surveillance legal under British
law, it does not mean that the NSA can use GCHQ surveillance as their proxy to
circumvent US 4th amendment protections. Its very clear at this point that the
NSA has been violating the Constitution.

Their lawyers can write all the secret opinions they want to justify and
obscure their actions; but it still does not make it legal.

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andrewfong
Full decision here for any who are curious:
[https://www.privacyinternational.org/temporaipt.pdf](https://www.privacyinternational.org/temporaipt.pdf)

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known
They knew this trick back in the time of the Roman Empire. Bread and Circuses:
bribe the population with free bread and distract them with circuses whilst
the rulers do whatever they want.

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prht
What happened to George Orwell, Animal Farm, 1984 and all that hype about
eastern bloc, freedom and that crap. Confused. Maybe, George Orwell was an
Indian after all.

