MI5 slapped on the wrist for 'serious' surveillance data breach Home Secretary Sajid Javid has confessed to Parliament that MI5 bungled the security of "certain technology environments used to store and analyse data," including that of ordinary Britons spied on by the agency. In a lengthy Parliamentary statement made last week, Javid obliquely admitted that spies had allowed more people to …
But they only check terrorists.
Or people who could be terrorists.
Or people who might be terrorists but we don’t know until they’re checked.
You don’t want us to lose the war on terror do you? Sounds like something someone who might be a terrorist would say....
It's more an example of attitude.
If the police and security services feel that the laws don't apply to them and their job is to get around these fiddling legal niceities, then the people lose any trust in the system.
Tried living in a country where the police are just the gang with the nicest uniforms? It doesn't lead to widespread social and economic good
The trouble is, if you don't allow 'illegal' evidence, you get ridiculous situations where everyone knows that someone is guilty, but because the cops bungled some point of procedure, they're not allowed to prove it.
Of course, if the evidence is illegally obtained, someone can still be punished for that even if the evidence is used.
Plus, if I get to pick, I'd rather be nicked by a UK cop than an American one. Less chance of getting shot for starters.
>Of course, if the evidence is illegally obtained, someone can still be punished for that even if the evidence is used.
Generally British courts take a more "lenient" view of illegal evidence than Americans who automatically throw out the case.
There is a drug gang case on here that was just thrown out because the police held the suspects for 6 hours without allowing them to talk to a lawyer. The police reason was that they are a drug gang and their lawyer is a drug gang lawyer so allowing them to call him would mean that every other gang member would be alerted before they could be arrested.
But if you allow this do you let the police interrogate some poor kid picked up with a joint for 6 hours , or 24 hours (or if they claim he is a terrorist 28days) without any rights ?
In general the rules are not complex and the police are trained in them.
If you discover that they broke a rule the problem is that it's hard to know where it stopped. Broken custody chain leads to questions about whether the evidence was planted because the police "know" he did it anyway etc. etc.
"Given how notoriously lax UK law is when it comes to allowing state employees to trawl through whatever personal data they fancy with few meaningful prior permissions required "
Don't worry. That's the EUs fault - they make all of our laws, afterall.
It will all be sunshine and rainbows when we leave those fascist socialist nazi commies, the EU. It's true. That guy down the pub said the bloke on the TV said it.
In the UK we can vote in a government to repeal legal powers granted to these agencies. Once the EU transforms into a superstate with it's own security agencies, the EU electorate can do nothing to stop it because MEPs lack the power to propose changes to EU law. Effecting political change in the electorate's interest is more easily achieved with a smaller national electorate than across a large political union. If the British people don't take the power back while it's still possible, the EU electorate never will.
Remember these are wartime agencies with temporary powers that should have been repealed long ago. Their powers were justified to defend against foreign spies, but now they collaborate with foreign agencies, against our own people.
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