Human rights orgs take Five Eyes nations to court Human rights organisations have today made the most direct legal challenge against the UK and USA's surveillance activities since they were first revealed in 2013. Despite the outcry against surveillance which followed the outpourings of rogue NSA sysadmin Edward Snowden, and a few successful legal challenges, the utility and …
Those responsible will stick to their argument that what they do is "bulk collection" and that is different to "bulk surveillance", so not spying, does not interfere with any human rights.
I suspect they will win that one and the case will fail. I would however like to be proved wrong.
Yes, I wish these organizations luck. However, I won't be surprised that the EU and member governments will quietly ignore or subvert or make state secrets out of ways around any ruling that tries to restrict the surveillance going on.
The fact is that pretty much all of your EU governments want the NSA and GCHQ to provide them with MORE data, not less, and are deathly afraid of taking any action that would sever their relationships with the NSA/GCHQ. The French are even semi-openly campaigning to become the "sixth eye" in the Five Eyes network. If they get in, Germany will be banging on the door right behind them as lucky number 7.
The fact is that 3/4 of the EU knows which side their intel bread is buttered on. Once again in the El Reg forums, I will use the example of the grounding of Bolivian President Evo Morales' official jet on the suspicion that Edward Snowden was onboard trying to get from Moscow to Bolivia. You had 4 disparate EU nations (France, Spain, Portugal and Austria) involved in what is still a pretty incredible diplomatic occurrence, and of course you had the U.S. pushing the buttons to get these countries to close their airspace or not let Morales leave without searching his plane. And while Britain might not have been officially involved, you can bet that Cameron was entirely in favor of the operation.
Citation, please ?
Germany is the one country in this world that is dead against state surveillance and with good reason : there are people alive today that have witnessed what that brings about.
The unfortunate point is that there are not enough people like that, but apparently there soon will be, given the current trends.
So fret not, Citizens. In thirty or forty years there will be enough people to remember that it is not the People that should fear the Government, but the Government that should fear the People.
The only downside is the unknown number of disappearances that will happen in between...
Re:@Pascall Monett . . . it is not the People that should fear the Government, but the Government that should fear the People
Yes.
My personal estimate is that it will take several more generations than will fit into forty years to undo the arcane and convoluted laws that empower authoritarians to violate the most fundamental principles of the nations they govern. Governments everywhere have made a mockery of the notion of a social contract. But, ultimately, the overall trajectory of history is positive, toward greater knowledge, greater freedom, and greater tolerance.
Power does not yield easily. Those who govern have unilaterally appropriated both the ability and the will to plunge the world into economic chaos and a global dark age to preserve wealth and power.
In those nations where we, the People have the power, we need to begin to exercise it. We need to redirect the tools information technology and social-networking provide to organize and act. We need to repudiate the bought and paid for choices broken political processes have been serving up. We need to begin to fill government from the bottom up with people with the vision, integrity, and will to dismantle and rebuild government institutions.
And the first step is for citizens in countries with free elections to understand the simple truth of the quote at the beginning of this, and begin to act accordingly. Spread that truth, Encourage action. And, be confident that history is on our side.
It will require courage. Power never yields willingly.
Never forget Miriam Carey.
"A previously unknown hacker group has leaked embarrassing information about several prominent human rights lawyers. The disclosure, which included porn predilections, saucy cell phone pictures, and surveillance camera footage from inside the attorneys' homes, has already resulted in several resignations and at least one divorce filing. The leak was made public just two days before the attorneys were scheduled to present a case challenging bulk surveillance to the European Court of Human Rights."
If it's good enough for any state to carry out mass surveillance & blanket data collection of it's citizens then it must surely be right that citizens of those countries be lawfully entitled to do likewise to their government.
In the meantime, the best form of defence to attack,is to harden your defences.
To that end,I suggest that all users of communication hardware encrypt everything,hard drives,emails, all files,folders, protect your Firewall & router by changing default passwords to stronger ones using short phrases combined with non-alphabetic characters.
You obviously don't understand. If they catch YOU watching THEM, you get chucked into the federal pen for 15+ years. If, during your surveillance, you find something that actually embarrasses the order-that-prevails, your 15+ years is going to be in supermax.
If they surveil you, well that's just patriotic and why can't you just lie back and think of England/America/France/kittens/etc.
I hope they are successful in their endeavours however I don't think it will make much difference.
The ECHR may rule that what the governments are doing is illegal but what then? The governments in question will use the same bullshit arguments they always have, terrorists, paedophiles, criminals and that the only way to keep citizens safe is to blanket monitor everyone and everything. You could argue that this level of surveillance was previously not available or that this doesn't protect as the information is rarely acted upon but it will fall on deaf ears because the potential gains for governments to have this information is too valuable to give up. I think that if you have the browsing habits of the population then with this information you could determine what works in controlling or coercing the majority into thinking or doing what you want. They could for example see what news stories people read in relation to policy, what the majority care about and use that to get elected. There are probably many more uses in that regard and that's one of the things that scares me about all this. I hope in the end someone much smarter than me will create a form of encryption that no one can break and it's adopted by everyone then this will be resolved, until then it's open season on all our information.
Congress just stupidly overrode Obama's veto on a bill to allow 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi Arabian government and officials, despite warnings from all quarters of the administration and officials from past (republican) administrations. Apparently cowardly congressmen across both parties felt they had to support it, lest their opponents use it against them in attack ads before the election (I'm sure the only reason Obama vetoed it was because he wasn't up for re-election and could do the right thing....perfect example of why term limits are a good thing!)
So if we feel like our citizens have a right to sue a sovereign government in our courts, what's to stop people in other countries suing the US government in their courts? Might as well sue over NSA snooping, given that there is easy access to all the proof you need!
"So if we feel like our citizens have a right to sue a sovereign government in our courts, what's to stop people in other countries suing the US government in their courts?"
Suing one country in the courts of another is one thing. It's something else entirely to persuade that court they have jurisdiction let alone enforce any judgement you might get.
Membership of the ECHR is one of the requirements for membership of the EEA, so I do wonder if our PM's apparent path to take us out of the EEA is part of a longer plan* to take us out of it and prevent pesky annoyances like this recurring.
*Alternatively, it might just be a silver lining for her.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
