MPs to review laws on UK spy-snoopery after GCHQ Tempora leaks Parliament's intelligence services watchdog is to hold an inquiry into whether or not UK surveillance laws need updating in light of Edward Snowden's revelations into GCHQ's activities. The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) will also consider the impact on personal privacy of intercepting people's communications as …
I call whitewash. Look at his specification of the second duty of the ISC!
From Spyblog:
Henry Porter v Malcolm Rifkind: surveillance and the free society
Malcolm Rifkind and Henry Porter
The Observer, Saturday 24 August 2013 20.49 BST
[...]
What you clearly don't understand is that the ISC has two duties, not one. The first is to criticise and condemn the intelligence agencies if they exceed their powers or act foolishly. The second, just as important, is to defend them and declare their innocence when unfairly attacked by journalists or politicians. They cannot defend themselves. We are determined to do so, but only when the facts justify it.
[...]
This post has been deleted by its author
> At the very least it is theft
"1 Basic definition of theft.
(1)A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly."
- http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/1
Bzzt - return to Go; Do not collect £200... Better luck next time...
If intelligence bods can't run rings around self serving politicians and store all manner of leverage to have them jump through prepared circus hoops/desired tasks and chase embarrassing phantoms to never be caught or rightly wrongly identified, then are they not fit for future purpose in either the real and/or virtual fields of active engagement.
You'd have thought that Rifkind would know that he spouts nothing of effective concern to intelligent bodies by now. He's been blethering such stuff and nonsense for more years than he should care to remember. But such is the lot he has chosen for himself, I suppose.
The committee of seven MPs and two Lords cleared GCHQ of any wrongdoing over its use of data harvesting by the NSA's PRISM programme back in July.
Uhmm-hmmm, of course it did.
Now, about that "legislative review". I understand you Brits like to bet on just about anything, so what are the current odds that the review will result in legislation stating, in so many words or less, that GCHQ will be enabled to perform what ever data acquisition (read: spying) it wants, under any circumstances, without any recourse whatsoever?
Nothing will change whatever review is undertaken. There's no difference between the UK or US ethos on spying and the budget given over to such programs. Spying Doesn’t Work to Prevent Terrorism .... (Its only about the money). William Binney knows as much about spying as anyone alive... (former NSA whistleblower)
www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/the-dirty-little-secret-about-nsa-spying-it-doesnt-work.html
I'm beginning to think the smoking gun isn't dragnet mass surveillance, its targeted micro-surveillance abuses of power. The mass surveillance part is part-cover to gloss over highly-targeted Edgar-J-Hoover-like abuses. Read the reports of past NSA whistleblowers William Binney etc, actual program designers who were much more senior than Snowden...
Should you become a person of interest i.e. an OWS protestor or an outspoken critic of the banking establishment, or the military, or an outright critic of the UK or US administration, you will be targeted automatically... You may also become an unwitting target if you represent a foreign competitor to a US company, especially in the industrial military or energy sectors. Follow the money! The recent revelations of NSA spying in Brazil and France tell us a lot more about what's really going on...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intelligence_official)
On a wider theme of abuse of power and controlling information this is also worth a read...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
It is funny really. If you read the american constitution and the bill of rights you get some strong themes.
1) The government cannot be trusted so no infringing on free speech, no state religions and a freedom of the press and citizens assembling.
2) We are not sure federal governments can be trusted not to go all royal again, so keeping well armed STATE militias just in case is a good thing.
3) Government cannot put soldiers on your land without consent.
4) no unreasonable searches or seizures and no snooping without a warrant, and you had better have probable (as in statistics) cause.
5) grand juries (of CITIZENS) being indictments in serious of capital cases, protections against double-jeopardy and self-incrimination. Oh and due process , no mkaing it up ion secret. And if they take your stuff they must pay for it.
6) right to speedy trial, to be told WHY the government wants you, and the right to legal representation.
7) trial by a jury (of CITIZENS) for civil trials.
8) no excessive fines, bail or cruel and unusual punishments.
9) no rights are denied to the people just because they are not listed here.
10) powers given to states of people those which have not been given to congress.
Written over 220 years ago by citizens that fought to relieve themselves from tyranny (yes, that is the same feckless royals the UK currently has, and still has a toadying following).
Unparalleled genius would be to think of these concepts. It is extraordinary to think a country was born from them too.
It is amazing how easily people in power forget them...
P.
Without warrants issued independently by a court to cover each intercept, the intercept having a defined scope and purpose and a proper justification given for its necessity, any tweaks to the law will be worthless and change nothing from the current 'do as you please' situation. The current system for authorisation is a joke stripped of the humour and lacks even the stringency of its predecessor. Until someone way outside the system is giving the nod, public trust will deservedly remain at zero.
Parliamentary oversight also needs to stretch beyond the current cosy gentlemens club of 'those in the know', and ALL major security service activity and projects should be subject to cross-party parliamentary scrutiny - not just "call me Dave and his chums saying great job guys".
They can split legal hairs over legal and illegal and whats being intercepted being 'content' or 'meta', but it will do nothing to change the perception that they are lying though their teeth - the truth exists in what they actually do, not what they claim they do. It might be a win in the debating society at uni, but cuts bugger all ice in public.
Sometimes when I think about "in the thick of it", it feels like I watched a documentary...
I think there are a few issues that need addressing and it is the revolving door between biz and gov.
Also, allow "professional politicians", appears to be a really good way of selecting for people who should not be anywhere near the levers of govt power.
Perhaps we need to make political manifestos legally binding and open to mind term voting?
If you *really* think about, what was it the govt did when the founding fathers wrote those words, and what does it NEED to do now, you can't help asking yourself if there is ANYTHING you cannot get a company to do for you?
No coffee yet, soz..
P.
Almost all my comments are rejected by the Register unless totally innocuous unlike foul-penned and
less knowledgeable comments. Here then all I'll bother to say, rather than waste more of my time or anyone else's is that it is not the completely responsible gathering of information from us used solely to overcome a crisis and in no way used to label us that I think most object-to. It is the factually undeniable situation that there is an organism which controls the direction of all our governments in achieving profit financially and politically.
Unfortunately these information gatherers have now moved into internet scouring, "social media" and increasing from the traditional blundering but almost amiable intelligence boffins into motley collection of 'secret-service' radicals who's pathology is worthy of anxiety. In the interests of the "multiculturalism"...such a sweet sounding name... chapter of globalisation, jihadist believers are not only NOT rejected as immigrants but positively welcomed and some infiltrate communities and mosques (as did Christians against them) with raging anger and promotion of violence against what another set of terrorists call "goyim' Their insults against christians, some well deserved and some infamous are tolerated by the host nations whilst they are themselves intolerant of insults towards their own version of the most shallow understanding of Yeshua.
The problem essentially is in comparatively small groups of communities being given the power to act on behalf of 'faceless men' whilst purporting, even believing they act to show us the 'way' ...'moving forward' to use today's fashion-apeak. It is the realisation that, they, even our own government bodies are no longer OUR friends but act to protect something not quite visible though many know what it is and are silenced....which drives the resistance to the spying on us using numerous techniques and 'modern developments' and that any of us can disappear during day or night through our own 'security forces' to never be seen again or to turn up as a shadow some time hence.
What we do not trust any more is that we cannot trust almost anyone...which the new order has a delight in achieving. The mendacious, slippery and doctrinaire adherents to a totalitarian envisioned globalised, new world order cannot be trusted to have a single vision towards peace on earth and we must take the right as OURS to protest loudly and freely, un-harassed, unlisted, un-recorded and maturely.
Whilst we do so we should do, and openly and vocally acknowledging any benefits we have gained through these intrusions on our privacy. ...but one should not have to be 'either-or' as most commentators seem to suggest. The concept that the State (undefined) is greater than the people is much lauded but intrinsically unsound and a machination. The government should finally be forced by us to understand it is a group elected to be paid to be our advocates, not the latest in a series of advocates for alien forces and ideals and connivance.Voila
The reason most of your comments get rejected is because they're simply far too long. Please see the Register Comments Guidelines for more info, paying particular attention to section 8. As soon as we publish anything a commentard says, we become legally liable for it - and we do not have any fulltime mods to devote to this.
Keep it short and to the point or we'll can it because we don't have the time to wade through reams of comment copy, no matter how insightful. Sorry.
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