UK ministers, not judges, to sign off on Brit spies' surveillance Under the UK's forthcoming Investigatory Powers Bill, warrants required to justify the intelligence services' snooping will continue to be signed by those in government – and not by independent judges – in spite of recommendations by an independent review into Blighty's counter-terrorism legislation. Following from a …
1 - New report recommending judicial oversight
2 - GCHQ cretins lean on 'soft' Gov ministers to ignore recommendations for fear of Judiciary
3 - Gov ministers play into their hands (nice spending habits you have, shame if it became public)
4 - Report successfully ignored
5 - Immoral dataslurp and snooping continues!
Plus ça Change...
And from that we can deduce that the home secretary signs anything and everything put in front of her, just in case?
I feel a good Hindenburg joke coming up
(It goes like this: Random story with a guy eating sammich .... when the guy in the story finishes it, a secretary will tell him not to leave the lunch paper around because President Hindenburg will probably sign it.)
"Is there any evidence that the number of plots foiled is more than, say, zero."
That raises an interesting point. The Govt. and their security minions like to frighten us "'cos terrists" and yet the few times they deign to prove how "good" they are at foiling terrorists, it's always the numpties they parade in front of us, the sort of wannabe terrorists who would most likely have accidentally blown themselves up (if they even managed to make a viable explosive device in the first place)
exactly what abuse have you personally had to put up with?
I was referring to the abuse of the systems which in turn could easily end up in the abuse of the individual or group of individuals.
In any case your question is one that can rarely ever be answered - all of these activities are highly secretive normally for good reason, making any investigation by members of the public next to impossible. Just because we don't know it's going on though doesn't make it any less of an abuse.
GCHQ purposedly kept vulnerabilities in SSL undisclosed for 2 years so that they could use them for spying on our own population during which time data was stolen, systems were hacked, etc. So for a significant number of people and businesses they have suffered losses directly because 'the man' has put snooping above protecting the people of this country.
well following this logic why not just have government ministers deciding on whose guilty and not?
Surely that will clear up loads of things, just send all the unemployed to work camps, the cripples to death camps and the foreigners to internment camps.
Also I suspect judges are far more accountable than the secret services and government... what with the whole law thing...
"the Attorney General's advice was very clear. It would be totally irresponsible of government to allow the legal system to dictate to us on matters as important as terrorism. Not only would they tie things in knots very quickly, but they are not elected and answerable to nobody."
Translation: "We're above the law"
I thought that was the idea behind separation of powers in the first place.
"Not only would they tie things in knots very quickly, but they are not elected and answerable to nobody."
No, they are not elected. But gov.uk disagrees about this anonymous government minister claiming judges are not accountable...
The principles of judicial accountability
It also talks about judges being able to act independently from the ruling party. Maybe that's the problem...
True Judges are not elected, but then government ministers are only elected to serve a short term and then they go and sit on the backbenches or right their memoirs or some such. What arrogance to think that by being elected makes them right.
To become a Judge one must have a relevant legal qualification and practiced in law for a least 5 years. Let me see a part-timer with a political agenda vs a legally trained professional - mmm!
Any time a sitting government removes independent judicial review from a legal process involving its citizens should be viewed as suspect.
Well, in the rather unlikely event of Plod actually asking the folk they supposedly protect, methinks quite a few folk would find the opinions and statements of Andrew Gould to be f'ing offensive, I know I do.
I mean who does he work for? Ah that explains a lot...
/surprised...
"As part of our deal with China, we'll employ the same sort of snooping set-up with the same level of accountability."
You got that arse about face. The Chinese are here to "invest" as cover for payment to us so we can teach them a thing or two about snooping and surveillance. They are jealous as all hell over GCHQs facilities and powers.
Wow, an undemocratic Parliamentary Party coup to silence and neutralise both the Lords and the masses. Go luck with that folly in search of fool support. More than that though will certainly be needed to halt revolutionary reaction and all manner of attacks, both real and virtual, on dishonourable members and administrators, methinks.
That's right...
They don't need to lie to any electorate to become a judge -- their experience, knowledge and track record matter. Alien concepts to politicians, of course.
They don't answer to public opinion, Daily Mail, mumsnet, or indeed lobbyists.
They don't need to please our so-called political allies, either.
But the actual problem, from gov's point of view, is of course that they cannot easily be controlled; this is *exactly* why we have judges, and with them, the separation of powers.
They say history repeats itself...
Seems like Compassionate Conservatism has morphed into a Feral Federal Fascism, sysconfig, and history tells us all what happens to those in that sort of a lead whenever they cannot hide, and there are no secret places to hide away today, are there.
I'm nearly speechless at this.
You have judicial oversight because it makes you accountable, it makes the judges accountable because they have to explain their reasons as well, if you want to snoop on someone then you must have a reason and the judge will review and accept that in 99% of cases as long as you have good reason. To take that away is like putting it all behind closed doors with no oversight and zero accountability.
Is it just me or are we really heading for a totalitarian world? First get rid of judges powers then the house of lords leaving only the Norsefire party to rule.
"Is it just me or are we really heading for a totalitarian world? First get rid of judges powers then the house of lords leaving only the Norsefire party to rule."
Judges? We've never had judges, or a House of Lords. The Party has always been in power. EastAsia have always been our allies.
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