Wednesday 5 April 2017

Finding Proportionality in Surveillance Laws – Andrew Murray, Inforrm's Blog

Finding Proportionality in Surveillance Laws – Andrew Murray | Inforrm's Blog: "Much of the Bill’s activity is to formalise and restate pre-existing surveillance powers. One of the key criticisms of the extant powers of the security and law enforcement services is that the law lacks clarity. Indeed it was this lack of clarity which led the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to rule in the landmark case of Liberty v GCHQ that the regulations which covered GCHQ’s access to emails and phone records intercepted by the US National Security Agency breached Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Following a number of strong critiques of the law including numerous legal challenges the Government received three reports into the current law: the report of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, “Privacy and Security: A modern and transparent legal framework”; the report of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. “A Question of Trust”; and the report of the Royal United Services Institute: “A Democratic Licence to Operate”. All three reported deficiencies in the law’s transparency.

 As a result the Bill restates much of the existing law in a way which should be more transparent and which, in theory, should allow for greater democratic and legal oversight of the powers of the security and law enforcement services. In essence the Bill is split into sections: interception, retention, equipment interference and oversight, with each of the three substantive powers split again into targeted and bulk." 'via Blog this'

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