UK spy agency violated Snooper's Charter with 'unlawful' data retention An independent tribunal has blasted British spy agency MI5 for "serious failings in compliance" and "unlawful" data collection of British subject dating back to 2014. In its January 30 judgment [PDF], the Investigatory Powers Tribunal sided with data privacy advocates Liberty and Privacy International, which sued the …
I'm just surprised the watchdog was allowed to see enough evidence to come to its conclusion. Score one for openness. That's what I expect to change now.
The claim that it would be damaging to national security to enforce the rules - seems odd. I'm not going to speculate as to whether it's true, what it means, or what information the inquiry was fed to bring it to that conclusion. But I do feel qualified to speculate about what they meant by including it in the report. As it stands, it clearly implies that either the law needs to be changed again - or MI5 is shockingly negligent in how they manage their data. I'm guessing B.
"Shockingly negligent" could also be read as "have no interest in complying with the regulations, and are under intense five-eyes pressure to ignore such laws".
For sure, they are almost certainly aware of what they are doing. The fact they resist so hard to stop doing so in the future, hints at a larger problem.
If they are snooping on a targeted individual for an extended time period, I am not particularly concerned. If they are snooping on 100% of citizens 24/7........
Well, that is exactly what the findings imply. They are, explicitly, allowed to keep data on identified subjects of interest. The fact that that's apparently not enough for them - implies that no one has made the effort to identify and tag which data actually fall into this category.
That's what I meant by "shockingly negligent". They've got all this data, but they haven't actually done the most basic level of analysis to it. They're just keeping it around in case they want to go fishing one day.
... and some fish got caught - hence the national security argument against deleting some data.
A potential argument for Snoopers' Charter 2.0 with more sweeping powers?
There should be a continued requirement for judicial review and officially warranted data acquisition.
"Nothing good comes of unchecked power being exercised by government intelligence agencies operating in the shadows," she continued. "It's undemocratic and dangerous to our rights to give MI5 a free pass.”
Try taking away MI5 free passes endorsing and reinforcing unchecked power being exercised by government intelligence agencies operating in the shadows would be much more dangerous to one’s continuing good health and even right to life, methinks, for some such things have long ago proven themselves to be absolutely necessary because of shady state and non-state actor/government and non-governmental shenanigans and dodgy dealings.
Yours Sincerely, M ?
amanfromMars 1You never did answer my question:
Would you kill 5 other people to save the life of one? .... Martin Summers
No, I didn't, although a popular understandable and acceptable answer might be self evident if 5 other people were intent and engaged in threatening and attacking one's own life with an earnest view that the resultant outcome be one's own death.
Then life is cheapened and has always proven itself too costly and unpleasant to worthily preserve/maintain/retain.
It's an ugly choice to have to make, and one which is best left both unasked and unanswered given the insight which may or may not be correctly drawn from any response, negative or positive.
In defence of oneself in such a conundrum and dangerous and unnerving situation, self preservation and self defence delivers many more supporting friends than opposing enemies ... and for all of the very best of right ugly reasons.
"Would you kill 5 other people to save the life of one?"
This is one of those bullshit questions designed to give the asker the high moral ground. All very good but have you heard of something called... 'war'? How you feeling about Ukraine's actions, or are those civilians not worth fighting (and potentially killing invading soldiers) for?
"At its highest levels, MI5 systemically disregarded the law, and the Home Office's failure to do anything green-lighted their activities,"
Let's face it, they are a set of self entitled twats. They probably really believe they are above the law. I can imagine the outraged comments they are making to each other about how wrong this ruling is. Oh joy.
Actually I am far more likely to trust the civil servants than the politicians above them. I read somewhere that every prime minister up to Cameron used these services to snoop on journalists and political opponents and I don't think the incumbent mob will be much better. However in some cases even that is justified, because back in the 1970s labour and the unions were indirectly receiving money from the USSR in an effort to de-stabilise the country. Out of chaos comes opportunity for the fringe elements to gain power. I still suspect Haroid Wilson may have been a KGB agent especially as he canned TSR2.
The problem is that lately the government, most likely including at least one of the latest prime ministers, have directly been receiving money from Russia. Now imagine person in this kind of position having extracurricular access to domestic spy services...
I think you should mind.
It's not like we (as in regizens) needed convincing that allowing the government to mandate encryption key back doors into applications was a bad idea but, surely, this is yet another example of why this would be a bad thing, no?
Even if they could somehow convince us that no bad guy would get their hands on the back door key they seem to forget that they can't be trusted with the keys to the cookie jar either.
Given that all Western governments are God's blessing onto the world, a backdoor for their use would only be used for the pursuit of good and to fight evil and should thereofre be supported whole heartedly.
If you disagree then you must be doing something dodgy and you will need to be examined further
All government discussions and actions should be made available to the public who apy for them. All owners of companies (shareholders) should be jointly and severally liable for any damages and debts the company has.
This would make for a more equitable world with less growth but more accountability and less harm to people.
All government discussions and actions should be made available to the public who apy for them. All owners of companies (shareholders) should be jointly and severally liable for any damages and debts the company has.This would make for a more equitable world with less growth but more accountability and less harm to people. .... scrubber
That would/could make for a more equitable world with more responsible growth doing less harm to people with their politically incorrect and adept inept SCADA Systems and shareholders chasing profit for the sole benefit of themselves, an arbitrary extra percentage value added? tax for nothing extra which increases supply cost inevitably eventually beyond the point of viable sale and attractive general purchase.
With that profit element at every stage of a product/project/development, and most all products have many stages where profit is always added and paid and carried over into final manufacturing cost before an arbitrary retail price is then decided with its profit element also added, does every product price bear precious little relationship to its true raw cost, and very quickly becomes realised as unaffordable, and in the most egregious of cases, identified as a rip-off ...... and the for profit capitalist system is realised to be self-serving, self-defeating cannibalistic and a blight and existential threat to humanity.
Is that where the Wild Wacky Western Fiat Capital System is at today ..... a self-serving, self-defeating cannibalistic blight and existential threat to humanity? Or is that the sort of unpleasant realistic news usually fated to be kicked down the road by irresponsible fickle and foul media for sharing and hiding/presenting and denying again tomorrow?
All available global evidence presently supports such being the undeniably viable honest case.
J'accuse.
The principle is great, but in reality it doesn't work for government. Some of the actions and decisions must stay in the dark, when related to the defence of the country for instance. It doesn't mean there shouldn't be control by independent bodies, but everything cannot be made public.
Potemkin!, Hi,
That is exactly what dodgy governments quite rightly fear beyond anything else, their dark actions and decisions in the command and control of independent bodies which are, in governmental best interests, better not made generally public knowledge because they are powerless to remedy the situation out of remote, relatively anonymous, semi-autonomous commander control.
The truth not being known though, and in most cases being deliberately hidden from peer review and forensic comment, is devastatingly counter-productive and eventually very quickly surprisingly self-destructive as is intimated in this very recent National Defense Magazine Editorial Opinion piece ....... https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2023/2/1/the-free-press-a-national-security-issue ....... which recognises that such causes mounting irreconcilable problems liable to explode/implode at the most inconvenient of time and in the most inconvenient of places too?
Interesting that there is radio silence on the 77th brigade
https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/ministry-of-truth/
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23286961.probe-look-77th-brigade-monitoring-uk-social-media-posts/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/29/armys-information-warfare-unit-monitored-covid-lockdown-critics/
How can we trust the authorities when they deliberately remove alternative views test where not false or inaccurate and are required to form objective and informed consent?
... right? ... right?
Personally I don't see a problem with MI5 being given access to all data that is stored about me - I'd prefer the West have it than those nasty foreign countries like Syria, Russia, ChY-NA (said in Trump's voice), Iraq, Iran etc - after all given the UK is the guiding light in all things good in the world, they'd never do anything nefarious with that information.
If MI5 want to know my bowel movements or know what I like to sort myself out - they should certainly have that right - I will even enable the camera on my phone so they can watch if they so choose.
If they ask nicely - although to be fair they don't have to - they can even come round and give me a hand ... and if there's any crime that needs clearing up they should also be given the power to manufacture any electronic evidence to ensure a conviction - as they will be ensuring public safety and doing so for the greater good ...
Anyone who thinks otherwise is just plain hiding something.
Quite so, TheInstigator, however such would be as casting Perl before swine ......... given the present dire straits state of the UKGBNI and its equally impacted Westernised allies/conspiring partners/brothers in arms/cohorts in crime etc. etc., and the much greater problematic reality for the likes of an MI5 or MI6 operation [Security and Secret Intelligence Service type bods and/or bots], given the all too obvious fact they haven't/wouldn't have a clue about what to do whenever they have all the Earth's information available to them ...... imagine it being something similar to giving a bonobo ape an internet connected laptop ..... with such a disability and facility and utility being recognised and used as a systemic universal vulnerability to be enjoyed and exploited with impunity by SMARTR A.N.Others communicating on matters of Mutual IntelAIgent interest stealthily.
:-) And something so novel to be pigeonholed and classified as too unbelievable to be honestly true and thus extraordinarily rendered further free reign on a free rein way beyond any Earthly command and control of Chinese whispers......... which one does best to note is not a question posed to invent an opposition and entertain disagreement.
But their ambitions and desires must be sated - give them the information they desire - what will they do once they have it? Help me sort myself out? Great!...... TheInstigator
In the absence of any available viable evidence that Western security and secret intelligence agencies would be able to properly attractively handle the help given via access to desired almighty leading latent information, indicating as its IT and AI components/proponents would do that established status quo arrangements are inequitably self-serving, eventually quickly destructive-inducing and inevitably self-defeating, and thus is that which needs to be fundamentally abandoned and radically changed to that which is to be shared with them from the Systems of A.N.Others, and which will choose to remain practically unknown and unknowable, for all of the very best of reasons guaranteeing absolute safety and impregnable security, don't be relying on any help from them sorting you out, TheInstigator, for such is neither within the gift of their utilities and facilities nor their own human abilities.
The same though cannot be said of that which they desire/seek/need but would in their ignorance and arrogance, greed and hubris, do vainglorious futile battle against being universally unilaterally revealed and freely ubiquitously shared ...... and in so doing, clearly identify themselves as the mortal enemy within and hostile state actor[s] to be comprehensively destroyed and virtually annihilated.
* .... or unless you’ve really done something wilfully wrong
Look, if there really is a need for them to have access to whatever data then Parliament should legistlate so, publicly and properly. This bollocks about 'yeah we broke the law but we really had to' is bollocks.
If and when I get a speeding ticket or otherwise am found to be breaking the law can I do the same? I think I shall give it a go.
"But Occifer, I was speeding to stop Chinese/Russian/North Korean (delete as required) baddies from baddying, and HM Government has decided that's ok, so ta."
