UK Surveillance Regime Violated Human Rights | Hacker News Reader

UK Surveillance Regime Violated Human Rights

eff.org

87 pointsoctosphere17 comments

The UK has a pretty poor human rights records lately and they don't really seem to care about it (Assange).

I wholeheartedly disagree with the UK's mass surveillance and the media/public's wilful ignorance of the issue but Assange is suspected of sexual assault and broke bail. He's expected to face the law in the same way as anybody else.

The warrant for his arrest has been revoked by Sweden and the Swedish prosecutor found he committed no crime. He is not expected to face the law as anyone else, the UK government has already committed crimes in deleting emails regarding him but nobody went to jail. The UN has also ruled that he is being held in arbitrary detention. The only time you get punished is when you go against the US empire. Who was punished for the murder of the two journalists in Baghdad? You only face the law when you are inconvenient.

Due to the embarrassment of the CIA w/r/t to the recent leaks the US government is going to try to prosecute a publisher of classified information for the first time ever.

To be fair I don't think deleting emails in accordance with their procedures is a crime. And that being the case why would anyone go to jail?

There is no reason to expect their procedures are legal, this thread is an example of government procedure shown to be illegal.

And also no reason to expect their procedures to be illegal either. True enough about the surveillance, but the two things aren't connected, just because one procedure was illegal doesn't make all government procedures illegal.

>And also no reason to expect their procedures to be illegal either

Being illegal would be a good reason for going to jail, which is the question you asked.

But they're not illegal so the point is moot. Also illegality does not mean jail. The severity of an illegal action dictates that.

>But they're not illegal so the point is moot

They aren't? We both agreed that procedure could be a illegal, what reason do you have to assume this procedure is legal?

Oh dear.

'Could be' and 'are' are two different things.

Where's your actual evidence they are illegal? You don't have any.

What reason do you have to assume this procedure is illegal? Other than some kind of irrelevant association with the surveillance program of a different part of the government proving to be illegal.

I'll gladly accept the procedure is illegal provided with proof it is, so... over to you.

I'm not stating that the procedure is illegal. Having never read the procedural guide or the relevant law, I fully confess my ignorance on the subject.

You are stating that it is legal, and from my point of view your only reason is that the accused said they were following procedure. As following procedure doesn't show legality, why are you certain it is legal?

There's no accused person.

If it were illegal it wouldn't be in place, full stop. This is the crown prosecution service, what ever you may or may not think of them, their procedures have to be legal. If a procedure that is in place is challenged in a court and found by the court to be illegal then fine, it gets changed. But those following said procedure beforehand are not breaking the law and are acting in good faith.

But data retention isset in law (at the time under the 1998 act, and now the gdpr and 2018 act) and the cps follows those laws like everyone else must. Their procedures follow these laws.

He has committed crimes in the UK that he is wanted for. The charges in Sweden were dropped for practical reasons, something the UK should also have done. It's a sunk cost fallacy, they've spent a huge amount of time and money trying to arrest him despite it not being practical.

Authoritarian regimes using courts against dissenters is not new, this is like saying yes he is a dissenter but the court process must be allowed to complete.

How is it that after the Snowden revelations not a single person is held responsible or accountable and its the whistle blowers who are facing the full force of the 'law'?

Assange is stranded, Snowden is in exile and Manning faced the full force of the law. What law is this?

I suspect this is a pattern when it comes to spying and internet surveillance now. Don't expect the NSA's activities would be in accordance to many human rights laws, and likely similar for other 'Five Eyes' countries and countries trying to snoop on internet traffic in general.

The issue is that there seems to be no organisation with the power to enforce said rules on the countries/governments/organisations doing this.

> The issue is that there seems to be no organisation with the power to enforce said rules on the countries/governments/organisations doing this.

Is that not the role of the public/voters? Assuming they are informed and not apathetic of course.

Both parties in the UK are broadly pro surveillance, and since it's FPTP you're damned if you do, or don't.

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