Huge swath of GCHQ mass surveillance is illegal, says top lawyer

[dipsydoodle]

GCHQ's mass surveillance spying programmes are probably illegal and have been signed off by ministers in breach of human rights and surveillance laws, according to a hard-hitting legal opinion that has been provided to MPs.

The advice warns that Britain's principal surveillance law is too vague and is almost certainly being interpreted to allow the agency to conduct surveillance that flouts privacy safeguards set out in the European convention on human rights (ECHR).

The inadequacies, it says, have created a situation where GCHQ staff are potentially able to rely "on the gaps in the current statutory framework to commit serious crime with impunity".

At its most extreme, the advice raises issues about the possible vulnerability of staff at GCHQ if it could be proved that intelligence used for US drone strikes against "non-combatants" had been passed on or supplied by the British before being used in a missile attack.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/gchq-mass-surveillance-spying-law-lawyer

[Anarcho-Socialist]

1. What happened to the fair-weather libertarians...

...in the Tory and Lib Dem leadership?

I recall the angst cries of "New Labour surveillance state" from before 2010.

Opportunistic posturing you say?

[LeftishBrit]

2. In my opinion...

the foundations for the surveillance state were laid, to a very large extent, under Thatcher. She did not of course have all the latest technology, but she went to extraordinary lengths to organize the infiltration and surveillance of people and organizations that she disliked:

e.g.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/how-thatchers-election-win-launched-secret-war-on-cnd-6286326.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/margaret-thatcher-nearly-sent-in-the-army-to-crush-miners-secret-papers-reveal-9034934.htm


While I hold no brief for Blair, he did not invent surveillance.