Brit spooks slammed over 'gentlemen's agreement' with telcos to get mass comms data Privacy International has slammed the UK's spy agencies for failing to keep a proper paper trail over what data telcos were asked to provide under snooping laws, following its first ever cross-examination of a GCHQ witness. The campaign group was granted the right to grill GCHQ's star witness after he made a series of errors …
So much for all those government re-assurances.
I'm sure we promised that the snoopers charter was fully equipped with checks and balances and that no one need worry about spooks taking the law into their own hands.
Still, guess its nothing new and spook agencies all over the world do exactly the same.
You can just imagine what #hashtag Amber Rudd signs off... Anything.
Mouthpiece, conjecture, utter.
I can't help thinking the spooks found her 400 votes at the last election to keep her Hastings and Rye seat, given the revelations here.
(Losing Rudd, would have forced out Theresa May at the time, for sure, given Rudd had stood in for May during TV debates).
"You can just imagine what #hashtag Amber Rudd signs off"
Using the latest in making-stuff-up technology, I can exclusively reveal to you how such a meeting happens:
GCHQ: "Hello HomeSec, we'd like to tap all the communications of this person"
Home Sec: "Are they a naughty person?"
G: "Oh yes"
HS: "Oh go on then, here you go *scribbles signature*"
Check and balances eh?
Don't be stupid.
The real enemy of such organizations is not their counterparts in other countries.
It's the subjects of their own country.
All the terrorism/drug trafficking/paedophila is self serving bu***hit.
"But we had naively hoped that they were spying on the enemies of the country, rather than the enemies of the current home secretary"
But the only way of making sure that they find the enemies of other countries is by spying on everyone...
You have nothing to fear if your are innocent!*
* Important note: by innocent we mean completely innocent of everything, including putting your rubbish in the correct recycling bins. Our political masters will take care of making everything illegal in someway so that our spying is justified.
.....for the hack on the Belgian government?????
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/17/gchq-belgacom-investigation-europe-hack/
......probably not!!! And then again was the hack legal under BRITISH law???
......probably not.
STASI at work in Cheltenham!!!!
There seems to be a missing element to this story.
Did the telcos (all of them?) just roll over and provide data on request? Or did they at least insist on some form of Due Process? Wouldn't the latter in itself create a documented evidence trail (at least in theory)?
And did all our telcos behave exactly the same? Or is the story glossing over something, or perhaps generalising from a single GCHQ-telco relationship?
ummm GCHQ has a policy of not writing anything down if it can be avoided. Deliberately to avoid being held responsible, especially if they can point to the blame being elsewhere.
This causes the police no end of grief when asking for a paper trail...Its no wonder they don't like each other much.
...GCHQ has a policy of not writing anything down if it can be avoided...
ALL the intelligence services have a policy of producing as little documentation as possible. This is because of their history - WW2 and then Cold War. During WW2, for instance, the SOE were famous for telling people as little as possible about what they were doing. And at that time there were very good reasons for limiting information distribution. Lots of people would get killed if the information got out, because you were in a total war....
This background and tradition is completely at odds with peacetime work - the rule of law, and the principles of justice which require examination of evidence in an open court. While the Police don't seem to be very good at this, they at least have the requirement for open evidence collection as a fundamental requirement for their work.
You might wonder why we still maintain an arm of the executive which operates secretly and ignores the law, given that we are no longer fighting a war for the continued existence of the country. You would be right to so wonder...
The police have access to some of the same tools as GCHQ. In fact one system has a mode specifically for the police where by it can only intercept traffic with a valid warrant associated with the track and the software won't function without it. Even then, I don't think the evidence can be used in court.
Oddly the same software gets installed without those 'restrictions' elsewhere..... That same software also gets sold into the middle east and other questionable places. My morals kicked in at that point and I left.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/15/bae_accused_selling_to_repressive_regimes/
Telcos (plural).
Who are they kidding? There is one Telco in this country that *still* owns 95% of the underlying transport system for data, even if other 'ISP's' rent some of it off them and re-sell it.
It would therefore have to be a Telco with a Retail and a Wholesale department.
It's only a two letter acronym, based on where it is and what it does.
Ph*cough*orm.
Let's say the s9 is disapproved by the system, but the PM still wants to intercept information on British citizens... all they do is contact their buddies in the CIA to set up their equipment for interception and get the information through them.
--thanks for playing. the PM wins either way.
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