Fascinating. I'm amazed that people aren't pointing out the consequences to the USA of GCHQ had access to data covertly gathered from leading internet firms in the US.
Under US law, US investigators are not allowed to follow trails into this data that go to US citizens without a warrant. According to leaked training materials, they follow that rule. This is part of why they claim that this data collection is not an issue for Americans.
But if the data is shared with other intelligence services, who CAN legally follow those trails, then that's a pretty serious loophole. I'm reminded of the early Bush policy of turning over prisoners of interest to police in non-US jails where torture could be used and then the resulting intelligence reports shared back with the US.
Also the American investigators are told to report all times that they followed a trail to a US citizen. Were those trails shared as well? If so, then it gets worse still.
FWIW, under both English and Scots law evidence gathered by such means cannot be used in a court of law; though, certainly, it can be used by police (and often has been in NI to great success) as a means to observe crimes being planned (where you don't have evidence to prosecute, typically for conspiracy to murder in the NI case) and then have police ready to act to thwart the crime (thus the number of IRA bombers caught on their bomb run, at police checkpoints set up at the last minute).
But can such evidence be used to establish the grounds for a warrant?
That is a common trick in the USA. Data obtained in ways that would not be admissible in court can be used to get a warrant, and then data collected under the warrant can be used in court.
Grounds for a warrant is a matter for a court, and as it cannot be presented in court, no.
The typical behaviour in the days of IRA activity was that an attack being planned would be discovered through espionage (be it wiretaps, double agents, etc.) but no action would be taken (though several crimes have already been committed: membership of a terrorist organisation, conspiracy to murder, and often various other more minor offences) until they had the bomb with them, on their way to the attack, as until that point they didn't have evidence they could use in court. Typically a road block was set up, quickly (the bomb was normally transported by two cars, about a mile apart, the first one there to spot any police to abort it, so the roadblock could only be set up after this had past), by police and army. Obviously this relies on the people wanting to get out alive (I.e., not willing to blow it up with themselves in hope of getting arresting officer), but while they'd often put up a fight, they normally knew when it was over.
Well if you look at TAX laws and how companies avoid TAX by offshoring then how can anybody be supprised that data gets offshored and loopholes are found.
Congress had the opportunity with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to authorize the NSA to conduct dragnet operations to identify US citizens of interest. They very explicitly did not do so, and identified that as the line that the NSA was not to cross.
The scenario that I outline has them getting around the issue by having UK analysts conduct that dragnet operation, and then coming back with a list of US citizens that the NSA should look into. Those citizens would then be targeted by a national security letter or by a FISA court warrant.
This would effectively be a dragnet operation of the kind considered and explicitly rejected by Congress as being permissible, being justified under the reasoning, "Well, we weren't the ones who did it!" Yes, I know that as a lawyer your idea of a loophole is different than mine, but in my eyes, and the eyes of most Americans, that's a loophole.
Now is it happening? My honest suspicion is that it is, for the simple reason that it is hard to filter these data streams, and the raw is more useful. Thus unless they have specific cause to do otherwise, the UK gets broad access. If that happens, then every other part of my scenario fits within the interests of those involves, and so is certainly happening. The UK will follow data trails, and if they lead to US citizens will notify the US. The US, upon hearing such notification, will certainly act on the tips.
Assuming that it is happening, what will the response be? My sense is that the national security consensus from both parties in the USA would basically wind up saying, "You shouldn't have done that, here is a law making sure you won't get into trouble for having done that, now please protect us and try not to get in the news based on how you do it."
Based on past interactions I would bet that you're OK with that consensus position. As will not surprise you, I'm not OK with it.
Given this is being driven by Keith Vaz a well known and documented politician of debatable integrity (corruption, bribes, lies etc) then I wonder why this is being driven.
This is after all knee-jerk news or FOTM too some. No new evidence has been presented, no insight and yet more Britons personal details are violated by the hollywood law changes that the goverment has instigated.
It is not new that the UK and USA are buddies, we share data, we don't like criminals and like to catch them, nothing changed there.
Heck given BBC has a department called BBC monitoring that is located in a secure building and who's job is to monitor all the news Worldwide and on the floor above is a office run by a USA agency, then if anything one could question anything the BBC says.
Like most, I'm more shocked at the rabble rabble, OMG I had no idea this was happening mentality of many than I am about this old cold-war legacy exchange of information comming to light, albiet no new evididence has actualy come to light and it is just Mr Vaz jumping on another bandwaggon for personal gains.
Please don't like sites that make AV flash up red with warnings (probably some hijacked advert).
Also lacks details about context of said reports, proof said reports happened and again, general says nothing. As said before UK and USA work together, nothing new there, 197 seems rather low and when not measured against results is futile in discussing.
"The documents were said to show that the British agency had generated 197 intelligence reports through the system in the 12 months to May 2012 - a 137% increase on the previous year."
Perhaps we need more details about these documents. May has not denied the specific allegation, just mentioned the usual 'legal framework' thing.
Very true, the aspect nothing was denied is about as close as we may get to a admission. Though what those 197 cases involved and results would be more of interest, again we probably will never known. If anything I'm supprised that figure seems as low as it is.
Probbaly more concerning is that documents leak out to the press, what leaks out to the criminals you do wonder.
What astonishes me about PRISM is the motive behind it. It appears the purpose of PRISM is to keep the government and it's politicians in operation only. It has nothing to do with protecting the citizens of the United States or otherwise.
For instance: if we presume PRISM is as omnipotent as described, and I do believe it is as sinister as it was chronicled. One has to ask this: if the "purpose" is to "protect" American/British citizens from harm then imagine how many child molesters, child pornographers, cartel bosses, under-ground arms dealers, etc. etc. are tacitly allowed to do business.
In other words their raison d'etre "to protect us" is bullshit for more people are harmed from all of the above or even in car accidents then from the sinister people they want to "protect us" from.
Perhaps they want to "protect themselves" from we the citizens?
Under US law, US investigators are not allowed to follow trails into this data that go to US citizens without a warrant. According to leaked training materials, they follow that rule. This is part of why they claim that this data collection is not an issue for Americans.
But if the data is shared with other intelligence services, who CAN legally follow those trails, then that's a pretty serious loophole. I'm reminded of the early Bush policy of turning over prisoners of interest to police in non-US jails where torture could be used and then the resulting intelligence reports shared back with the US.
Also the American investigators are told to report all times that they followed a trail to a US citizen. Were those trails shared as well? If so, then it gets worse still.