back to article Draft super-snoop bill's data protection Code of Practice is a blank canvas – expert

Today the Information Commissioner will give his views on the draft Investigatory Powers Bill to a cross party Parliamentary Committee examining it. The Bill proposes a power for the national security agencies to collect Bulk Personal Datasets (BPD) by a warrant signed by the Secretary of State which is subject to review by a …

  1. Warm Braw

    You're assuming this is a genuine process

    I'm afraid there's very little point in engaging in the phoney debate over this draft bill - that simply lends legitimacy to the process.

    There is no intent to change existing practice, the only intent is to try to cut off avenues by which existing practice can be challenged.

    It's pretty likely that mass surveillance is already in breach of Article 8 - the outrage at Snowden's revelations was mostly because of a fear that "national security" would not survive a challenge in the ECHR not because they threatened specific operations. The government and the security services knew that their activities were likely illegal, except under a very tenuous construction of the law, but were determined to carry on regardless.

    There really is no intention to have an accountable system - the current draft bill simply makes it marginally more specific that the security services have much wider scope than has previously acknowledged, but makes it harder to challenge - or even discuss - them. If anyone comes close to challenging this legislation in future, more will follow and the goalposts will be changed as frequently as is necessary to scupper any effective action.

    1. Gordon 10 Silver badge
      Flame

      Re: You're assuming this is a genuine process

      Utter fail. So your suggestion is to do nothing? So they can legitimately claim that no-one objected.

      FFS. If everyone had such a dumb attitude then the snoopers charter would have passed the last 3 times it was attempted.

      This can be challenged and it can be fought both prior to and potentially after the bill gets past via the EHCR and other avenues.

      If they snoop without this bill there are avenues to challenge it. This isn't a binary yes/no thing its a matter of increments and numbers - every effort we make to say no or disrupt this sort of stuff makes it a little harder to carry out.

      Bottom line - there are a number of organisations and individuals fighting this, and genuinely a number of MP's who are concerned by it - so ffs man up and get with the program.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: You're assuming this is a genuine process

        "FFS. If everyone had such a dumb attitude then the snoopers charter would have passed the last 3 times it was attempted."

        This time I'm expecting a staged terrorism propaganda piece just in time for the vote. I thought that ISIS video was it, guys in trucks dressed in movie bad-guy black, executing spies and a hooded man speaking in a London accent threatening Mr Cameron by name just as Camerons's pushing a mass surveillance law? Such handy timing!

        But perhaps that's just my suspicious nature. It doesn't seem to have the impact they were hoping for. Even if we debate who the 'they' are and the nature of the desired 'impact'.

        What next, a plumbers truck from Texas appearing in Isis videos and this video released *only* by an US based Israel propaganda outfit known as "the Long war journal" who uniquely obtained it? Surely not!

        1. Captain DaFt

          Re: You're assuming this is a genuine process

          "a hooded man speaking in a London accent threatening Mr Cameron by name just as Camerons's pushing a mass surveillance law"

          "It doesn't seem to have the impact they were hoping for."

          Must've been a major shock for the poor dear to find the average joe on the street was sympathetic toward the hooded man because he personally threatened Cameron, eh? ;)

  2. John Sanders
    Thumb Down

    So...

    Because the government (this or any other) does not have a mind reading machine to figure out who would want to blown up a crowded area next, they have to spy on everybody.

    Regardless of privacy or basic rights to privacy, this collecting data business is a slippery slope, once they start there is no stop, this ends with the state regulating and supervising everything for our own good.

    All hail political correctness.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So...

      "who would want to blown up a crowded area next"

      What on earth makes you think this bill is a response to the above?

    2. Rich 11

      Re: So...

      All hail political correctness.

      And what on earth has political correctness got to do with this? Mass snooping is clearly not showing any sort of consideration for other people.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Theresa May Says

    When the Independant newspaper asked for Theresa Mays browser history FOR JUST ONE WEEK, she rejected it as Vexacious, designed for the purpose of fishing.

    http://boingboing.net/2015/12/28/uk-home-secretary-rejects-requ.html

    Yet she permitted in secret illegal vexacious fishing of all UK citizens, keeping it from Parliament? Who thought they had rejected "Snoopers Charter" many many previous times!

    And what about that lord, the ex Terrorism Police officer now Lord Blair, when he tried to slip Snoopers Charter into a lords amendment, he must have known about the mass surveillance? He said nothing!

    And when GCHQ arranged for Lord Carlile (former intelligence chief) to do the rounds of TV to avoid legal challenges to a program of mass surveillance they believed was illegal (otherwise why would they fear legal challenges). He must have known about the mass surveillance. He said nothing.

    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131025/15510725018/uk-spies-knew-that-its-surveillance-was-likely-illegal-which-is-why-they-fought-to-keep-it-so-secret.shtml

    These protections are worthless, the judge doesn't decide on case by case basis if there is reason to strip away the Privacy Human Right, he decides if the CLASS of reason is good enough. So GCHQ say "its anti terror" and then go spy on Amnesty International, or Parliament, or whatever and there is no controls over them to ensure their spying on Brits is for the reason they say.

    A secretary of state *now* authorized GCHQ to disobey Parliament, and they even helped in the coverup. So that "secretary of state" check is also worthless.

    These traitors need to come back within the democracy.

    You can't have a spy agency turn on its own people at the behest of a government minister.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. (a.k.a. the most stupid comment used by trolls)

    Lets take that apart from the Government perspective. For 13 years they hid the fact that they were using mass surveillance so I'm guessing they feared the public outcry.

    Why haven't we had public outcry?

    I can only surmise that the majority of the press are controlled by the government or most people are too self absorbed and have succumb to brainwashing performed by various television shows, big brother, x-factor or basically any "reality" tv show which is now creeping onto the web. The brainwashing as I see it is to get people to focus on the self rather than others, this makes everyone easier to control (put best by Pastor Martin Niemöller).

    As it stands I can only see this going one way, this bill is a joke and not a funny one.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      <i>I can only surmise that the majority of the press are controlled by the government or most people are too self absorbed and have succumb to brainwashing performed by various television shows, big brother, x-factor or basically any "reality" tv show which is now creeping onto the web. The brainwashing as I see it is to get people to focus on the self rather than others, this makes everyone easier to control (put best by Pastor Martin Niemöller).</i>

      Went round my sister's last night. She was on the phone for long enough she gave up on Big Brother (which was on with the sound off - so I only had visual vacuity to sit through). When the phone call ended she immediately went on Facebook. In response to a cousin's latest post I said I was glad I don't use it and she said she loved Facebook. If not for the phone call she'd have probably said she loved Big Brother (and had no inkling of the significance of the statement). I've <b>long</b> given up on trying to explain to her the realities of these interests.

      But there is no difference to how it was forty years ago, when we were at school. I really don't think there was any underhand objective in the UK society that produced her and her friends. Nothing has changed since history began. I suspect that the conclusion of the agencies that have investigated variations of mind control since whenever hs been that nost effective way to get a compliant population is just give them what they want.

      1. Roj Blake Silver badge

        Bread and circuses have always been the way to keep the people docile.

  5. Orange Skydiver

    Just wanted to say that I'm really glad there are people like you out there doing this kind of work.

    It was an interesting read and a good analysis of the problems with the bill.

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