![\"16.si\"](\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/16.si_.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u2039Civil liberties groups are making a legal challenge against the alleged use of mass surveillance by UK intelligence services.<\/p>\n
The tribunal follows revelations about UK and US surveillance practices by former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden. The groups involved intend to challenge the legality of alleged \u201cinterception, collection and use of communications\u201d by GCHQ.<\/p>\n
The case, brought by Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, Privacy International and Liberty among others, centers on the Tempora mass surveillance operation, the existence of which the UK authorities have neither confirmed nor denied.<\/p>\n
Documents leaked by Snowden suggest the program exists and allowed agencies access to the recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages and entries on Facebook.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week\u2019s hearing will be the first time that these UK government agencies, including the notoriously shady GCHQ, have appeared in a public hearing to answer direct allegations and state their position on the mass surveillance operations as a whole,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0said Amnesty International in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with the secret services, though, is the secrecy. It is very difficult to interrogate the legality of a<\/em>\u00a0program<\/em>\u00a0of surveillance, when the people having done it, refuse to acknowledge it happened.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) will determine program\u2019s existence and find whether it violates Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It will also examine the UK’s use of the NSA\u2019s PRISM mass data mining program.<\/p>\n GCHQ has always maintained its work is lawful but critics have questioned the division between domestic and international communications, and how the legal framework applies to specific areas such as intelligence-sharing with the US.<\/p>\n The tribunal follows the UK government\u2019s\u00a0announcement<\/a>\u00a0it will introduce emergency powers to ensure police and security services can continue to access phone and internet records to fight organized crime and terrorism.<\/p>\n This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00e2\u20ac\u2039Civil liberties groups are making a legal challenge against the alleged use of mass surveillance by UK intelligence services. The tribunal follows revelations about UK and US surveillance practices by former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden. The groups involved intend to challenge the legality of alleged \u201cinterception, collection and use of communications\u201d by GCHQ. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":129908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1614],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-129907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-surveillance-big-brother"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}