During a week where Labour are deciding what colour shirt to
wear as ‘One Nation’ conservatism cramps their style, it’s as if everyone seems
to have forgotten the Ills that will face the nation after the Summer recess. The
first of those ills, which Labour might do well to remember, is the so called ‘Snoopers
Charter.’ The US Court of Appeal recently ruled that the NSA’s mass data mining
operations were unconstitutional, should our Government really be lagging
behind in that realisation?
The US operations through PRISM and UPSTREAM gathered metadata
on US and Non-US citizens alike, metadata being the ‘connective tissue’ of your
digital footprint. As Teresa May recently put it, the ‘Who, What, Where and
even Why.’ The NSA, as Edward Snowdon most graciously revealed to us, used
these mass operations with a mind to combat potential terrorism. However, as
the US court of Appeal recently ruled, to allow government to collect data in
the way it had been was just, ‘irreconcilable with the statues plain text,’ referring
to the US Patriot Act which it was argued impliedly derogated from the fourth
amendment to the bill of rights. The fourth amendment is something that
American’s hold particularly dear, the right to security without violation
unless of course you have a warrant. PRISM’s scheme for data collection
required no such warrant and the argument that the US Patriot Act derogated
from the influence of the bill of rights, was ‘rightly’ struck down.
Here in Britain of course Government wants further powers
than those offered to the US through cooperation with the NSA. A recent
investigation by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) declared GCHQ’s
current cooperation’s with the PRISM operation were in breach of EU human
rights law. However, government followed up this finding with a statement
backing the continuance of GCHQ’s surveillance monitoring scheme. “Overall the judgement
is that the UK’s interception programme is fully lawful.” ‘Fully,’ I’m not so
sure about that. The Seventh Framework Programme A project funded by The
European Commission to examine the legality of data mining notes that, the EU
Data Protection Directive refers to a limitation on collection, ‘there should
be limits,’ and these ‘limits’ are in reference to non-contravention of EU
constitutional legislation, i.e. the European Convention on Human Rights. Under
EU law as it stands right now however, States can derogate from the Data
Protection Directive in areas regarding criminal law and public security.
So, as the US constitution is beating down ‘snooping’ intelligence
services with their constitution, we in Britain and throughout Europe are opening
ourselves to further invasions of privacy. Enter the ‘Snoopers Charter.’ This
legislation will see as ‘Call Me Dave’ promised, British intelligence agencies
being given the ability to, “read all messages sent over the internet.” The
Draft Communications Data Bill will compel CSP’s (BT, Virgin, etc.) to do just
as the PRISM and UPSTREAM programmes had done in the US and more. As well as
mass mining of metadata (the who, what, where, etc.) the passing of the bill
will compel the BT’s and the Virgin’s, to keep more detailed data for up to 24
months to enable the authorities to build a detailed picture of any possible
suspects. Liberty and Big Brother Watch amongst other campaign groups, have
made mention of the Government’s will for CSP’s to keep detailed ‘weblogs’ of
their user’s detailing online activity within a specified period; Websites
visited, emails sent etc. None of this by the draft legislation requires anything
more than authorisation from the Home Secretary’s office.
With labour in turmoil and the Tories taking on the guise of
the ‘One Nation Army,’ following the crisis of Charlie Hebdo against a backdrop
of war in Iraq and Syria it is easy to understand how a nations people would
allow civil liberties to slide. It must be asked of the participants in our
democracy, the British people, if this is really what they want. In simple,
easy to understand terminology, do you want to be watched? The Americans don’t.