{"id":53530,"date":"2015-02-09T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=53530"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:26:07","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:26:07","slug":"in-historic-ruling-uk-surveillance-secrecy-declared-unlawful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/02\/in-historic-ruling-uk-surveillance-secrecy-declared-unlawful\/","title":{"rendered":"In Historic Ruling, UK Surveillance Secrecy Declared Unlawful"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"GCHQ<\/a>

GCHQ headquarters: Barry Batchelor\/Press Association via AP.<\/p><\/div>\n

The United Kingdom\u2019s top surveillance agency has acted unlawfully by keeping details about the scope of its Internet spying operations secret, a British court ruled in an unprecedented judgment issued on Friday [6 Feb 2015].<\/p>\n

Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, was found to have breached human rights laws by concealing information about how it accesses surveillance data collected by its American counterpart, the National Security Agency.<\/p>\n

The ruling<\/a> was handed down by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal<\/a>, a special court that handles complaints related to covert surveillance operations conducted by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In its 15-year history, the tribunal has never before upheld a complaint against any intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n

The legal challenge was brought by human rights groups, including Privacy International<\/a> and Liberty<\/a>, following disclosures from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The groups alleged that GCHQ was unlawfully obtaining data through the NSA\u2019s online spying program PRISM<\/a>, which collects data stored by Internet giants such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo. The groups also focused on GCHQ\u2019s role in obtaining private communications swept up by the NSA directly from internet cables, known as so-called \u201cupstream\u201d collection.<\/p>\n

The court ruling against GCHQ found that by keeping the rules underpinning the surveillance secret, the agency had \u201ccontravened<\/a>\u201d the privacy and free expression provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights<\/a>. The secret policies were released<\/a> for the first time in December, meaning that until then GCHQ had been operating unlawfully, likely for several years. (GCHQ has had access to PRISM since at least 2010, according to reports<\/a> based on Snowden documents.)<\/p>\n

The judges cited a previous ruling that stated laws must be publicly available and clear enough so that individuals have \u201cadequate protection against arbitrary interference.\u201d But they did not deem the surveillance itself to be an illegal invasion of privacy; it was only the secrecy shrouding it that they ruled a violation of human rights. Friday\u2019s decision was therefore more of a victory for transparency than it was for online privacy.<\/p>\n

Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International, said the ruling showed spy agencies cannot justify mass surveillance using \u201csecret\u00a0interpretations of secret laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor far too long, intelligence agencies like GCHQ and NSA have\u00a0acted like they are above the law,\u201d King said in a statement. \u201cToday\u2019s decision confirms to the\u00a0public what many have said all along \u2014 over the past decade,\u00a0GCHQ and the NSA have been engaged in an illegal mass\u00a0surveillance sharing program that has affected millions of people\u00a0around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Welch, legal director for Liberty, said that the group would continue its fight against GCHQ mass surveillance by taking a case to the European Court of\u00a0Human Rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now know that, by keeping the public in the dark about their\u00a0secret dealings with the National Security Agency, GCHQ acted\u00a0unlawfully and violated our rights. That their activities are now\u00a0deemed lawful is thanks only to the degree of disclosure Liberty\u00a0and the other claimants were able to force from our secrecy-obsessed Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the Intelligence Services retain a largely unfettered power to\u00a0rifle through millions of people\u2019s private communications \u2013 and the\u00a0Tribunal believes the limited safeguards revealed during last year\u2019s\u00a0legal proceedings are an adequate protection of our privacy. We\u00a0disagree, and will be taking our fight to the European Court of\u00a0Human Rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PRISM program was first exposed by the Guardian<\/em><\/a> and the Washington Post<\/a> <\/em>in June 2013. Last year, The Intercept<\/em> published<\/a> new details about the scope of GCHQ\u2019s access to PRISM, and revealed that the British agency was secretly pushing to obtain broader access to huge NSA data repositories. These public news reports formed a central part of the case against GCHQ, and were cited during witness statements.<\/p>\n

GCHQ was dismissive of the IPT\u2019s ruling in a statement<\/a> posted on its website Friday, describing it as focusing on a \u201cdiscrete and purely historical issue.\u201d The agency pointed to a previous court ruling<\/a> on its \u201cbulk interception regime,\u201d which it said was \u201cfully compatible with human rights, in particular the right to privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________<\/p>\n

Email the author: ryan.gallagher@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Kingdom\u2019s top surveillance agency has acted unlawfully by keeping details about the scope of its Internet spying operations secret, a British court ruled in an unprecedented judgment issued on Friday [6 Feb 2015].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}