The Orwellian British government’s top security official has admitted that the UK government allows the interception of people’s online activities without a warrant.
Orwellian UK 'BANNED' Press TV: In a 48-page statement, released on Tuesday, Charles Farr, the director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism at the UK’s Home Office, said the mass interception and surveillance of citizens’ activities on social networks is legal.
He said the practice of monitoring searches on Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as emails to or from non-British citizens abroad, by the country’s security services is permitted by the law because the communications’ US origins make them to be classified as “external.”
Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which regulates the surveillance powers of public bodies, the interception of “external” communications does not require an individual warrant in the UK.
Commenting on the issue, James Welch, the legal director of Liberty, a human rights campaigning organization, said, “The security services consider that they’re entitled to read, listen to and analyze all our communications on… US-based platforms. If there was any remaining doubt that our snooping laws need a radical overhaul, there can be no longer. The agencies now operate in a legal and ethical vacuum; why the deafening silence from our elected representatives?”
Farr’s statement was issued in response to a legal challenge brought by several civil liberties groups, including Amnesty International, against the country’s intelligence services over the violation of the privacy of people via online surveillance.
The statement is the first detailed defense of the UK government’s spying policies since revelations by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Classified documents leaked by Snowden in June last year disclosed that Britain’s domestic spying apparatus, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), was secretly accessing the network of cables that carry the world’s phone calls and Internet traffic and was sharing the data with the US National Security Agency (NSA).
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Orwellian UK 'BANNED' Press TV: In a 48-page statement, released on Tuesday, Charles Farr, the director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism at the UK’s Home Office, said the mass interception and surveillance of citizens’ activities on social networks is legal.He said the practice of monitoring searches on Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as emails to or from non-British citizens abroad, by the country’s security services is permitted by the law because the communications’ US origins make them to be classified as “external.”
Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which regulates the surveillance powers of public bodies, the interception of “external” communications does not require an individual warrant in the UK.
Commenting on the issue, James Welch, the legal director of Liberty, a human rights campaigning organization, said, “The security services consider that they’re entitled to read, listen to and analyze all our communications on… US-based platforms. If there was any remaining doubt that our snooping laws need a radical overhaul, there can be no longer. The agencies now operate in a legal and ethical vacuum; why the deafening silence from our elected representatives?”
Farr’s statement was issued in response to a legal challenge brought by several civil liberties groups, including Amnesty International, against the country’s intelligence services over the violation of the privacy of people via online surveillance.
The statement is the first detailed defense of the UK government’s spying policies since revelations by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Classified documents leaked by Snowden in June last year disclosed that Britain’s domestic spying apparatus, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), was secretly accessing the network of cables that carry the world’s phone calls and Internet traffic and was sharing the data with the US National Security Agency (NSA).
Source and video
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