UK.gov will appeal against DRIPA-busting verdict, says minister

The government has announced it will appeal a High Court judgment which has ruled its DRIPA surveillance legislation unlawful. The High Court judgment, which was delivered this morning, ruled that the "emergency" DRIPA surveillance legislation rushed through Parliament last year is unlawful. Responding to the High Court …

[amanfromMars 1]

Too little, too late .......and now flogging a dead duck horse

The system's running scared of that which is being found out and delivered as to how things are run/happen and as to who and/or what are ultimately personally responsible and accountable? Yes, it most probably is, and is terrified and terrorising itself.

[Afernie]

Re: Too little, too late .......and now flogging a dead duck horse

You wish.

[amanfromMars 1]

My Wish .... Yours to Commend with Command

You wish. ...... Afernie

To imagine it to be just so, a wish, is to not realise what is happening all around you everywhere with controllers of cyberspace exercising their rights to micro/macromanage universal perceptions and to novel orders of command from spooky new non state players with advanced intelligence .... which is akin to their airing of cutting edge future information too, Afernie.

Que sera, sera. One cannot stop the future being completely different from the present with no dependence upon the past.

[amanfromMars 1]

Their Wish .... Ours to Command with Cyber Control and AIR&dDs ‽ :-)

Their love is in the air ...... Cameron's Conservatives and the Internet: Change, Culture and Cyber Toryism: .... however, Live Operational Virtual Environments are in apolitical Command and Control Centres with Memes and Virtual Nodes XXXXploiting to XSS AI Research and digital Developments.

I Kid U Not. It's ITs Raw Unvarnished Truth.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: Too little, too late .......and now flogging a dead duck horse

I was about to say that your comment made no sense, and ask whether you are amanfromMars, then I looked again...

[Sureo]

Re: Too little, too late .......and now flogging a dead duck horse

If you're amanfromMars then whaddya care about any of this anyway?

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

Hmmm....

"Hayes stated that metadata, also known as communications data, "is not just crucial in the investigation of serious crime. It is also a fundamental part of investigating other crimes which still have a severe impact, such as stalking and harassment, as well as locating missing people.""

To be honest, I don't think anyone is actually disagreeing with the sentiment of this statement. The issue is that there is no judicial oversight to independently assure the public that the so-called "security services" are not running amok with this personal data to pursure their own agendas rather than solely to pursue legitimate criminal sources.

This also : "The government, however, has stated it will take "whatever steps are necessary to ensure communications data continues to be available when it is needed.""

That statement just stinks of a petulant child that needs a good slap and that has actually forgotten that it only exists to serves the public will, not its own. Can we combine resources to bring a contempt of court case against that total fuckwit Teresa May?

[Ol' Grumpy]

Re: Hmmm....

"To be honest, I don't think anyone is actually disagreeing with the sentiment of this statement. The issue is that there is no judicial oversight to independently assure the public that the so-called "security services" are not running amok with this personal data"

Couldn't have put that better. Have an up-vote :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm....

I do not give a flying f*** to what it is crucial or not.

Is it lawful? No. End of story.

The alternative is called Joseph Vissarionovich Jugashvilli.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: Hmmm....

@Aristotle's Horse, you're absolutely right.

in principle, there is no problem in the police and security services having the ability to monitor those who are suspected of a crime, subject the approval and oversight of the judiciary. This oversight is a vital safeguard in a true democracy.

The involvement of the judicial branch is a measure to prevent abuse of those powers by 'bad actors', within the police or government. it is not reasonable to presume that without such safeguards, these powers will always be used correctly, and history would indicate that they will be abused.

Even though the involvement of the courts would most likely be a 'rubber-stamp', it would mean a record of the request is kept (although this may remain secret for a number of years as national security requires). Furthermore, such 'rubber-stamping' is absolutely not the job of a politician (i.e. the Home Secretary), as there is a clear conflict of interest in cases where investigations may have a political element.

Note that the existence of such powers is in itself not a problem, if they are used correctly. On the one hand, we have the fundamental human right to privacy, but on the other, we have the rule of law, and the need to prevent criminality. This leads to the sensible conclusion that intrusive surveillance should be used only to combat crime (which includes terrorism), and not to watch the populus as a whole. This should require reasonable suspicion, so that it is not applied inappropriately, limitations so that it is not over-reaching, and oversight, so that the results can be evaluated independently to establish whether the surveillance was justified in the first place, to check any possible pattern of abuse. None of these prerequisites needs to be onerous - as I said, it is a simple matter of rubber-stamping and recording.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm....

@Loyal Commenter Whatever makes you think we live in a true democracy?

Theresa and Dave's hymn sheet includes the phrase "F*** democracy".

They didn't get where they are today by not having the mandate of 24% of the electorate...

[Tony S]

Re: Hmmm....

"They didn't get where they are today by not having the mandate of 24% of the electorate..."

Tony Blair got to number 10 with 22% of the electorate having voted for Labour.

Is there a government since 1960 that has reached more than 40%?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm....

@Tony S

re: Is there a government since 1960 that has reached more than 40%?

Case proven - none of them had a real mandate. They only thought they did.

[TkH11]

Re: Hmmm....

Don't think you understand what contempt of court is. There are two variations: contempt of court and contempt in the face of the court. Neither apply in this case.

Contempt of court is to do with a party failing to comply with a court order.

Contempt in the face of court is typically associated with bad behaviour of someone in court in front of the judge.

So no, no action can be taken against May.

[Graham Marsden]

"that total fuckwit Teresa May"

I'd amend this to "that *almost* total fuckwit Teresa May" because she has, at least, seen sense and banned the use of Water Cannon in Britan...

[I am not spartacus]

Re: "that total fuckwit Teresa May"

I would rather consider that the, in your words, "*almost* total fuckwit Teresa May", hasn't so much seen sense, as seen the opportunity to grab a minor advantage against Boris 'the Buffoon' Bunter in a forthcoming leadership spat.

If the Camerooney sticks to his pledge of not standing for PM again, that seems to imply a Toady leadership bash by the end of this parliament, at the latest. May, Johnson and Osborne seem to be the lead contenders (Davies a possible outsider), so I feel both trepidation and incredulity at the prospect. I mean, how could a party line up such an unattractive bunch of zomboid mutants as the prime choices for an important role? Makes Labour, whose selection looked initially weak, seem like a glamour contest.

I'm quite happy to contemplate Davies seeing sense, in spite of being from a different part of the political spectrum. He may be a little bit to the right of sensible, from my perspective, but not without intelligence. May, however, is a completely different kettle of kippers. Evil, but effective, I would say.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly Governments and Banks are above the law. They will do whatever they like until a revolution forcibly removes them. Then in 20 years, rinse and repeat. I guess I'm now a terrorist for pointing out the obvious.

[Tubz]

"I guess I'm now a terrorist for pointing out the obvious", nope just a realist. Personally I would put them all against a wall and spend a couple of quid on bullets. Wonder if I can class them as a charitable donation to the country ?

[knarf]

hmmm,,,

The government, however, has stated it will take "whatever steps are necessary to ensure communications data continues to be available when it is needed."

Screw you people who elected us; we want our toys,

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: hmmm,,,

You seem to have been cut off mid sentence there...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Govt. and it's security apparatus

would take "The government, however, has stated it will take "whatever steps are necessary to ensure communications data continues to be available when it is needed."" as a statement of, at best, ambivalence where the Law of the Land is concerned.

If quoted verbatim, coming from a body specifically adjudged to have already disregarded said Law, I suspect Teresa May needs to be behind bars.

[Ian Bush]

Random Fluctuations in the Cosmos

My word, I agree on something with David Davis! The world gets stranger every day ...

But a beer to the both of you. And good luck to Tom in your deputy leadership challenge - one of the few truly good people left in British Politics, and an excellent music taste as well. What do you think of Royal Blood?

[Teiwaz]

Chilling...

> "The government, however, has stated it will take "whatever steps are necessary to ensure communications data continues to be available when it is needed."

Scarily reminds me of an excerpt from Babylon 5 'Messages from Earth'

"In related news, Earth Dome Chief of Staff Bill Harris announced that a new alien race, only recently detected may pose a significant threat to planetary security.

When asked what was being done to counter this threat Harris said only that extreme measures may be required."

[TkH11]

When the DRIPA was on the table being billed as "just an update to the legislation because the existing legislation is running out" I took the liberty of reading part of the European directives on Privacy (which EU member states create their own legislation to implement the requirements of the EU directives). One central tenet of the EU directive was that member states legislation must be proportionate and give the default position that the individual has a right to privacy.

It seemed to me (with my limited legal knowledge) that DRIPA was wider in scope than the then current legislation and more disproportionate too.

I felt at the time that May and Cameron were deliberately being dishonest with the public and MP's and intentionally not stating the truth about changing the scope of the legislation.

I felt at the time the DRIPA legislation was incompatible with the EU directives on Privacy and Data Protection.

I think the MPs failed in their duty to the public because in my opinion they didn't read the text of the proposed legislation fully, properly.

I haven't read the full text of this High Court judgment but on the face of the article here on The Register, this court case isn't about disproportionality in the context of the relevant EU directives but seems to be focussing on metadata and its use and whether constituency-MP comms should be intetcepted or not. So I'm still not sure this judgment addresses other fundamental problems with the legislation.