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GCHQ can monitor MPs' communications, court rules
- togusa 11y agoWell there goes democracy.
- benevol 11y agoYet another reminder, among so many over the last couple of years.
- mtgx 11y agoThat's what you get when a secret spying-oriented Court has to rule on this. It's like asking the FISA Court rather than the Supreme Court whether the NSA can spy on American citizens and politicians.
- vidarh 11y agoActually, while it may be a "spying oriented Court", there should have absolutely no surprise here. (EDIT: To be clear: I find this spying disgusting, but that does not change the fact that there was no good legal basis for assuming MPs were somehow protected) The idea that MPs were above being spied on had no basis in law whatsoever. The only reason some people believed this was that Wilson said so, and nobody challenged the fact that no law was passed to actually prevent the security services from carrying out such spying. But the public statements of the prime minister has no legal standing whatsoever to set policy for government departments. That MPs for decades have believed that the word of a politician not packed up by actual laws, or even actual government policies passed on to the security services, would in any way protect them is what is bizarre here. On the upside, someone finally challenged it in court, rather than just blindly accept the "of course the Wilson doctrine still stands" nonsense.
- cm2187 11y agoBecause MPs are a bunch of dangerous terrorists!
- SideburnsOfDoom 11y agoYou probably think you're just joking: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/15/green-party-peer-put-on-database-of-extremists-by-police http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/15/green-party-...
- cm2187 11y agoI guess a few Irish MPs probably also have a shaky past. That being said we are on a slippery slop when the State thinks it needs to protect itself from its elected members of parliament.
- morsch 11y agoPresumably you are aware of this, but let me spell it out: The MP from that article hasn't been involved in any violent crime, much less anything resembling terrorism. She's just an active participant of civil society and an opponent of the police state. Of course, unlike actual terrorists, this makes her a real threat. We have the same thing in Germany, the domestic intelligence services keeping tabs on MPs. Of course Germany has a rich tradition in this kind of behaviour.
- tajen 11y agoHeh, what if the PM itself is acting against the interest of the nation! We need to know! Maybe the GCHQ is saving us from rogue actors at the top level! Didn't see that coming?
- ttctciyf 11y agoThat already happened a while ago (though MI5, not GCHQ), according to this guy[1] and several other "theorists" (viz. [2]) MI5 themselves beg to differ[3] (though they don't address Wallace's allegations directly, it seems.) And the whole idea, with a fictional PM, was made into a novel by eminently monitorable ex-MP Chris Mullin[4] and then a miniseries. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wallace 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wilson_conspiracy_theories 3: https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/about-us/who-we-are/mi5-history/the-cold-war/the-wilson-plot.html 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup
- mrmondo 11y agoMaybe this could be a good thing? Maybe if the MPs feel that they're under surveillance like the rest of us they might not be so quick to support global spying.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- benevol 11y agoOr maybe they don't even have a choice any longer.
- jbrooksuk 11y agoI like to hope so!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- madaxe_again 11y agoNah. They'll just change the law to exempt themselves. The easiest way will probably be to define a new "class" of citizen, who is above all of the Surveillance, which is for the cattle. They'll enshrine this so deeply in law there will be no going back without violent revolution. That won't happen though, as the cattle are distracted and well fed - and any move against them which fails will only serve to further their interests, for you are simply a terrorist who hates the British values of suspicion, greed and prejudice. If the opposition has too good a reputation to be called a terrorist, I.e. They're in government, famous, etc., again, easy, say they're a paedophile and nothing they say will ever matter again. Either way, don't expect positive change from this. Expect May to hop up on a podium and explain that human rights prevent us from keeping you safe from the terrorists and so we must pass a bill that allows us to shoot dangerous people and the ten billion illegal immigrants who are taking your jobs right now, on sight, oh and by the way we're exempt from Surveillance.
- fit2rule 11y agoI agree with you - this will be swept under the class rug, like so many other crimes the British people have allowed their politicians to commit in their name, for centuries. I believe it will catalyze the political class, such that there really won't be any way but the mainstream way from now on. We'll see political factions fade away over the next few years, until there are only a few, or maybe eventually just a couple, of the same slight shade of grey ..
- nbevans 11y agoThat'll nicely neutralise the security threat that Labour caused when they elected Corbyn.
- madaxe_again 11y agoSod off, David.
- andyjohnson0 11y agoThen it seems that MPs might need to start deploying and using crypto in their everyday work - in a similar way to some mainstream journalists [1][2]. Which is a real shame and a serious distraction. Also, the Prime Minister and most members of the cabinet are MPs. I wonder if this disclosure affects them too? [1] http://www.tcij.org/resources/handbooks/infosec http://www.tcij.org/resources/handbooks/infosec [2] http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/hacks_hackers_security_for_jou.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/hacks_hackers_security_fo...
- SturgeonsLaw 11y agoSome politicians already are: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/minister-for-encryption-metadata-avoidance-app-wickr-shoots-to-top-of-charts-after-malcolm-turnbull-revealed-as-a-fan-20150303-13tgxy.html http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/ministe...
- Fuxy 11y agoI find it kind of funny since most MP's have been in favor of the spying on regular citizens under the assumption that they are immune. Now that they are in the same basket as everyone else I wonder if they will change their tune. It's always funny when someone who thinks they are a above the law they are creating end up subject to it.
- 7952 11y agoActually I think that MPs should be using encryption and if they adopted it as a result of this situation then that would be one positive outcome. Otherwise we quickly get to a point when the only possibility of privacy is if the communication is classified as secret by the government.
- onion2k 11y agoThen it seems that MPs might need to start deploying and using crypto in their everyday work All MPs official business should be a matter of open, transparent public record. Nothing they do as part of their every day work should be encrypted or private. The singular exception should be matters of national security, and even then their communications should be recorded in a secure manner with full accountability under the law if there's any suspicion of wrongdoing (e.g. lying to parliament about another countries WMDs). Public office should be public.
- orian 11y agoIt always feel to me quite ironic that countries which used to advocate freedom and free speech these days have most intense surveillance operations.
- kozhevnikov 11y agoSurveillance is the opposite of privacy, the opposite of free speech is censorship, and GCHQ doesn't advocate that yet.
- agd 11y agoIt's not quite as simple as that. Mass surveillance alone harms free speech because it affects people's behaviour. If you know everything you say and do is recorded, you tend to say and do a lot less than you would otherwise.
- superuser2 11y ago>If you know everything you say and do is recorded Intelligence agencies didn't want us to know that, we learned it from whistleblowers.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoAnd it's not even that bad in principle. In a more perfect world you want to have is freedom of speech and an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D. which secretly scoops all communication to protect the public from greater threats. Unfortunately, what we got instead is a kind of Hydra that lacks ambition for world domination.
- agd 11y agoIntelligence agencies are full of smart people. They know that secrets this big can't be kept indefinitely. Once the cat's out of the bag, then the panopticon comes into effect. They have factored in the effect on free speech into their decisions.
- fauigerzigerk 11y ago
- verinus 11y agoAlways when it comes to privacy I like so cite Benjamin Franklin: “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” ― Benjamin Franklin
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoRight. They just reap, what they have sowed. Maybe, some of them might begin to realize what they have done ... but I doubt it.
- togusa 11y agoErr but old Ben's quote is invalid here. We didn't surrender, nor did we vote for this, nor did we want this, nor did we expect this, nor do we have any power to stop it or prevent it from being introduced.
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoIn this case, the British surrendered -- and all free nations are about doing it also.
- togusa 11y agoBritain doesn't surrender. It just wallows in indifference ignoring laws and then promptly loses its shit when something is inconvenient.
- mikecb 11y agoThis quote is taken egregiously out of context.[1] You could still say its a nice quote, but its power comes from an appeal to authority, in this case, a founding father, and despite the fallacy inherent in such a tactic, the extent to which it does not apply to the liberties we talk about today suggest we could do much better than to bring it up every time. [1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said
- 11y ago
- nomercy400 11y agoWouldn't they be doing it regardless of the court ruling anyway?
- petepete 11y agoHopefully someone will guide MPs in setting up an encrypted alternative. Slightly ironic considering James H. Ellis worked for GCHQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Ellis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Ellis
- mikecb 11y agoEventually the UK may decide that no one should be monitored without probably cause, but suggesting that any portion of society, especially those with power, should be exempt from a regime the rest of society is subject to is a worse proposition than having pervasive monitoring applied equally.
- maaarghk 11y agoThis is a reversal of the Wilson doctrine. [0] A few months ago there was a leak [1] which suggested GCHQ were spying on Scottish MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) and MEPs. Now, of course, they can continue to spy on Scottish elected officials without anyone being able to claim unfair treatment of MPs over others. Edit: The other argument is of course that before this ruling, MPs were "above the law" so to speak. So in that sense it is a bit of a re-balancing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Doctrine [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-33650000 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-3365...
- spacecowboy_lon 11y agoI remember chat to a HOC worker and there was some disgruntlement that the staff had to have Developed Vetting (ie TS clearance) and there is very little checks made on MP's
- jimrandomh 11y agoThe scariest thing about today's intelligence agencies is not the possibility of governments using them to exert totalitarian control. The scariest thing is that the intelligence agencies don't seem to even be loyal to their governments.
- gknoy 11y agoThey might perhaps feel that their role is more like a combination of the Ministries of Love and Peace, and thus loyal to what they see as the government. In fact, one might even say that they are loyal to their government, rather than to their nation.
- pjc50 11y agoUpdate: Parliament will hold an emergency debate on the subject on Monday. http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/MPs-hold-emergency-debate-politicians/story-27991305-detail/story.html http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/MPs-hold-emergency-debate...