UK, French, Belgian blanket spying systems ruled illegal by Europe’s top court Mass surveillance programs run by the UK, French and Belgian governments are illegal, Europe’s top court has decided in a huge win for privacy advocates. The European Court of Justice (CJEU) announced on Tuesday that legislation passed by all three countries that allows the government to demand traffic and location data from …
It never rains but it pours .......... Carte Blanche 00 Licence to Thrill
Surely nobody sane expects security services and assistant agencies to follow rules and act normally/traditionally/conventionally. That would be as an open invitation for madness and mayhem to invade with CHAOS and conflict in tow bringing up the rear. You gotta be really stupid to believe that is possible.
The heads of and the ministers responsible for the BND, MI6 have all been drawn over the coals before now or fallen on their proverbial swords for overreach.
Heck, the US Supreme Court ruled that the CIA, NSA and Co. had gone too far, based on the Snowden leaks and had acted illegally.
The UK's RIPA bill has been thrown back at the Government at least twice, because it breaches Human Rights standards.
If one wants a quieter and more uncomplicated life, big_D, one can always accept that some of the exceptionally smarter agents are, and have always been a law unto themselves, and as such, always best acknowledged whenever practically invisible as virtually effectively untouchable ...... with it being certainly advised as being distinctly unwise to warrant their exclusive intrusive invasive personalised attention, because of such attention being trialed by others thinking it wise to be funded and headed their way.
That's both a critical strategic mistake to make and a fundamental tactical error to always avoid like the plague, for no good comes of it, for everything then committed is intelligently designed to be suddenly lost/forfeited/sequestered/quarantined/commandeered and no longer left readily available to any or all interested parties.
'Tis a remarkably heavy price to pay for nothing worthwhile, but a valuable lesson to learn if one is able to survive.
I'm not sure if anything has been accomplished since the illegality of these mass surveillance systems was known long before they were implemented but announced. Yet EU member states implemented them anyway. No doubt there will now start a long and protracted legal battle over this, with member states dragging their feet all the while threatening the EC with a reduction of authority if their new toys are taken from them.
> if they change what they do
...We'll be able to sell room heaters to hell!
Please remember what "a politician" actually is: It's somebody who wants, needs power, power as absolute and unsupervised as possible. Such a person would never voluntarily bow to a bunch of foreign bureaucrats. He needs that feeling of unrestrained power cursing through his veins to be any good in bed.
> Not all politicians enter into the field for power
True, initially. But power corrupts.
Power is a powerful drug, and the very idea of becoming a politician stems from an urge to tell other people what they should think and do anyway, so if you're not a "I'm right, everyone else is wrong" kind of person you will never ever even think about becoming a politician. If you just want to serve your community you go volunteer at a soup kitchen or some such.
I don't think that's how any of that worked. The history seems to be that some people worked out a way for laws to not conflict maybe while others did what they wanted to, in many cases ignoring even those people trying to stretch the letter of the law. Those who created the spying programs didn't care what the law said they could do, or even what their own lawyers said they could contort the text into allowing, but instead did everything they could come up with. When laws changed or courts informed them that they needed to stop, they just didn't and waited for the next case.
Take this chunk from the decision:
“in situations where a Member State is facing a serious threat to national security that proves to be genuine and present or foreseeable, that Member State may derogate from the obligation to ensure the confidentiality of data relating to electronic communications by requiring, by way of legislative measures, the general and indiscriminate retention of that data for a period that is limited in time to what is strictly necessary, but which may be extended if the threat persists.”
Here's how that chunk will get used:
"in situations where a Member State is facing a serious threat to national security that proves to be genuine and present or foreseeable,"
"foreseeable". "Foreseeable"! "FORESEEABLE"! As long as the people at the spying organizations can foresee something bad, they can do many things. I can foresee bad things with ease, and I guarantee you that they can foresee much worse things. Here they have complete authority to activate the powers granted them in the rest of the quote. But of course that section will still impose serious limits:
"that Member State may derogate from the obligation to ensure the confidentiality of data relating to electronic communications"
All good so far, they can throw away their responsibilities. Restrictions are coming, right?
"by requiring, by way of legislative measures,"
Oh no. They'll have to get the legislature's support. This is a major blow, because they'll have to inform the public about what they're doing and why. Except the laws being challenged here already support the measures, so nothing new is required.
"the general and indiscriminate retention of that data"
Well, they didn't hold back about adding sufficient adjectives to let the organizations do whatever they want, did they?
"for a period that is limited in time to what is strictly necessary,"
Ah, they're throwing us a bone. They can do whatever they want, but only for a limited time. Then they have to throw out their data and start over. At least they'll only have a year of my data at any time. Sure it'll be the most recent year, but still, it's nice that they're giving me that.
"but which may be extended if the threat persists."
Remember that the threat will persist for as long as someone can foresee it. And that nobody gets to decide that the foresight is wrong or question whether the threat persisted. I foresee that a new country will form called Evilania, and it will invade our country. As long as I continue to foresee it, I can extend the retention timeline as long as I like.
> There's no such thing in the UK and many European countries (save Germany).
True, but this depends on how important each considers their constitution to be. In many countries most people just assume there is one, but have no idea if that's true, or what it actually says. In others it's just a formal paper you can change on a whim to suit your current political needs.
If the USA and Germany have such important constitutions worth protecting with a special court, it's because those constitutions are foundation stones (USA), or the safeguard against repeating past errors (Germany). Also both countries are federal nations, made up of a bunch of very different and not necessarily always culturally agreeing entities. Running such a heterogeneous ensemble is facilitated by having a framework all agree upon.
both the USA and Federal Germany are relativley new countries, that have defined their Constituions in an age where such things were recorded and are based on some of the documents that form part of older more nuanced constitutions.
the UK has no one piece of paper, or single document, but has a system of common law and core documents that form a far more rounded and nuanced system than those relative younglings.
The Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628) , the Bill of Rights (1689), the Act of Settlement (1701) all confer rights on the people and form part of the UK constitution, it also contains other un written rights like the common law duty of confidentuality.
> the USA and Federal Germany are relativley new countries
France is just as old as the UK, and yet has a constitution.
You're right that constitutions only became fashionable relatively recently (historically), but I would rather tie it to the political system: Monarchies don't have constitutions, they have at best the monarch's promises to not be too harsh. But once there is no king of divine right anymore, you need some framework that determines what the nation is and how it works, and that's a constitution.
Portugal has one as well, and it seems to be used regularly. At the crunch 10 years ago, I think cuts in pensions were ruled unconstitutional.
In Denmark it belongs with the supreme court (Højesteret) but is hardly ever used for constitutional matters, which is a pity as the constitution is not that bad.
"This is not the US common law, where unconstitutional laws can be on the books for many years until a court decides that they should be ignored. In civil law systems, courts only rules facts, not interpretations."
They do interpret law, and in this case the GDPR exemptions are incredibly vaguely drafted so the interpretation was only ever going to crystallise once the ECJ started ruling on it. Also the EU does have a de facto constitution in the shape of the Treaties and the Charter (of Fundamental Rights of the European Union) which constrain EU legislation and give the courts power to strike it down, and that has been used in this case to constrain the GDPR exemptions.
What you're getting at I suppose is that the courts are not legally bound to follow the interpretations of past ECJ judgments as in a common law system, and so formally the law is 'known' in it's entirety immediately after the legislation has passed (despite what Doctor Syntax said). That's a very theoretical technicality though. In practice national courts follow the ECJ rulings on similar cases and the ECJ pays a lot of attention to it's own past decisions, trying to make interpretation consistent. So the law is much better known both for the average Joe and the most studious lawyer once some judgements have been made.
The transition agreement runs out on 31/Dec/2020 - after that the European Court of Justice has no authority in the UK. I expect the UK government and its security agencies to just waffle until then and keep the mass surveillance programs. The UK government (all parties) is far too fond of the power that the mass surveillance programs give them to abandon the programs.
Icon for what should (but will not) happen to the mass surveillance programs =========================>
No.
There are quite enough terror attacks and superstitious zealots intent on being idiots to justify continued surveillance to Parliament. Hell, most MPs need convincing not to impose more and more.
(Except on themselves of course. They get exemptions. In the public interest, apparently, that MPs don't have the law apply to themselves.)
after that the European Court of Justice has no authority in the UK
I've no doubt that is what will be said in public. However, authority, like sovereignty, is a largely theoretical term: what matters in reality is who has power.
The UK will be at theoretical liberty to go its own way, but the practical consequence will be a severing of data-sharing with the EU: if they're prepared to cut of the US, they'll happily cut off the UK.
If you wish to demonstrate autonomy over your own body, you can saw off your lower limbs - with the practical consequence that you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
"The UK will be at theoretical liberty to go its own way, but the practical consequence...."
And you think the current HMG gives a damn about consequences?
Like the next US govt, the next UK govt. is going to have a massive foreign relations and trade repair job on its hands.
Uk government has agreed to abide by any rulings on cases started by 31/12/2020 (rulings must be made within 4 years).
That’s one reason why the EU are suing HMG now in the euro courts over the internal market bill. If they waited till Jan 1st HMG would ignore any rulings. If a deal is agreed then the internal market bill would never be used & hence no case to answer.
"Uk government has agreed to abide by any rulings"
.. in a treaty, parts of which the UK government has now un-agreed to. And the procedure if they don't abide is that the Arbitration Panel will make a ruling that they haven't abided, and so there will merely be two rulings to ignore instead of one.
Hmm. I've worked with IT workers in India, Malaysia, Chile, South Africa, Australia, USA, Canada, Bulgaria, France, Costa Rica and Monaco. All in just the past five years.
One of those places pays better than the UK and I promise you, it absolutely does not have better work conditions.
@tip pc
"That’s one reason why the EU are suing HMG now in the euro courts over the internal market bill."
Interestingly it might not be possible for the EU to sue over the internal market bill, because its a bill not an act. It is proposed but is not law and that matters when dealing in international law-
www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-eu-can-t-sue-the-uk
>Interestingly it might not be possible for the EU to sue over the internal market bill, because its a bill not an act.
However, for the Internal Market Bill to have any real value, it needs to be on the status books before the end of the year; so a game of cat-and-mouse is probably being played: will the bill be an Act before the case gets a court date and will that date be before the end of the year...
The main reason it is still a bill and not an act is because the Lords have sent it back to the Commons with the offending articles removed. One of the many reasons the Lords is a vitally important part of our governing process.
Of course, it's entirely possible - given the people in HMG we're talking about - that the whole thing was just a badly conceived posturing act.
(FYI: a bill becomes an act once passed by House of Commons + House of Lords and then receives Royal Assent)
Basically, for the sort of "freedom" the brexitters want, we'd have as much to do with the rest of the world as North Korea... Well, even worse - they do have China.
Dombo has already agreed to not sacrifice our human rights in a deal - much to the annoyance of the ERG who long for the return of the workhouses. "Why do the oiks need rights" say the toffs, and apparently the oiks agreed....
SPYING ON YOUR CITIZENS IS ILLEGAL
No shit Sherlock.
The hard bit is getting the "powers" to completely invert their view of the state and get them to understand that they work for and are controlled by the us, the people, and we are not in a dictatorship owned and controlled by "them".
Some hope ...
> This argument doesn't work when 'the people' want 'them' to spy on us
Yes, and sheep really want to be shorn, you just need to convince them so...
Crowds are as stupid as their most stupid member, so with some basic FUD you can convince them of almost anything, including things wildly detrimental to them. How else do you think any dictator and his handful of henchmen can rule a country of millions of people? "Iron fist" or not, given the sheer numbers of the population, people should be able to (literally) crush any attempt to harm them. Yet they very rarely do...
""Iron fist" or not, given the sheer numbers of the population, people should be able to (literally) crush any attempt to harm them. Yet they very rarely do..."
Depends on the size of the fist. If you have a fist large enough to tear the whole country or worse apart attached to someone willing to go MAD, people start checking if their situation actually is worse than what's potentially on offer.
> a fist large enough to tear the whole country or worse apart
That only applies if you play with his rules. You need to play with your rules, and they state that a dictator is one single person, and "the people" are millions.
Power only works if you can persuade people that obeying you is the lesser of two evils.
"Power only works if you can persuade people that obeying you is the lesser of two evils."
And enough single-handed power to be able to cull a sizable chunk of your population like it's Tuesday can be terrifyingly persuasive...because it implies the power to make the rules...and to hammer down anyone who dares to stick his head up.
> And enough single-handed power to be able to cull a sizable chunk of your population
I didn't make myself clear: Your dictator is not the supervillain with superpowers you make him sound like. All that fearsome propaganda is just his "don't mess with me or else" cover. In reality he is just an average Joe, susceptible to all things which affect an average Joe: One bullet and he's as dead as anyone else.
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