Campaigners legally challenge UK & U.S. spying on own citizens
Privacy campaigners have filed complaints against the UK governmentâ„¢s spying programmes, saying that the government is abusing laws to justify data trawling, local media reported.
London-based advocacy group, Privacy International on Monday filed a complaint with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, Britain’s interception watchdog, legally challenging the British and U.S. spy programmes that allow spying agencies to gather, store and share data on millions of people.
The complaint is the latest in a growing number of lawsuits and legal actions relating to the sweeping surveillance programme.
The complaint reads that the U.S.â„¢s National Security Agency (NSA) and its British counterpart GCHQ are spying on one another’s citizens and sharing the information without adequate legal oversight.
It also calls for an immediate suspension of Britainâ„¢s use of material from the NSA-run Prism programme.
Itâ„¢s demanded by the complaint that the GCHQ-run Tempora programme be temporarily suspended. The programme allows Britain’s spy centre GCHQ to harvest millions of emails, phone calls and Skype conversations from the undersea cables that carry Internet traffic in and out of the UK.
Lawyers acting for the UK charity Privacy International say the laws being used to justify mass data trawling are being abused by intelligence officials and ministers, and need to be urgently reviewed.
The group was prompted into legal action by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden and the leak of top secret papers he gave to the Guardian.
This led to a series of stories about the extent of modern-day surveillance and the disclosure of activities that have provoked a worldwide debate about the behaviour of western spying agencies.
“The contents of an individual’s phone calls and emails and the websites they visit can be information of an obviously private nature,” the claim says.
“If UK authorities are to be permitted to access such information in relation to those located in the UK in secret and without their knowledge or consent, the European convention on human rights (ECHR) requires there to be a legal regime in place which contains sufficient safeguards against abuse of power and arbitrary use. There is no such regime.”
Carly Nyst, the head of international advocacy at Privacy International, said the group had wanted to bring the legal challenge through a normal court so the arguments could be heard in public.
But the British government had insisted the group go through the IPT, which has only ever upheld 10 complaints against any of the agencies from more than 1,000 cases.
“We have been forced to take our concerns to a secret tribunal, the IPT,” she said. “It shouldn’t be a surprise. Why would the government want their dirty laundry aired in public when it can be handled by a quasi-judicial body that meets and deliberates in secret, the decisions of which are neither public nor appealable to any higher authority?”
She added: “In one of the world’s most respected and stable democracies, there exists a system of ‘oversight’ that would be at home in any authoritarian regime. A public debate about the covert activities of British intelligence services is drastically needed and long overdue.”
Eric King, head of research at Privacy International, added: “One of the underlying tenets of law in a democratic society is the accessibility and foreseeability of a law. If there is no way for citizens to know of the existence, interpretation, or execution of a law, then the law is effectively secret. And secret law is not law. It is a fundamental breach of the social contract if the government can operate with unrestrained power in such an arbitrary fashion.”
MOL/HE
Republished with permission from: Press TV