European Court of Human Rights to rule on the legality of the GCHQ's large-scale surveillance regime


Amnesty International, Liberty and Privacy International filed a legal complaint with the court today.

The scale of the surveillance carried out by GCHQ has been revealed by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

A similar legal challenge mounted in the UK last year saw judges rule that the spying did not breach human rights.

Secret court

"The UK government's surveillance practices have been allowed to continue unabated and on an unprecedented scale, with major consequences for people's privacy and freedom of expression," said Nick Williams, legal counsel for Amnesty in a statement.

The three organisations claim that the surveillance carried out by GCHQ breaches the European Convention on Human Rights that enshrines certain freedoms in law.

The surveillance carried out by GCHQ has been subject to a series of legal challenges since National Security Agency documents provided by Edward Snowden started to appear in the media.

In December, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that oversees the work of the intelligence services ruled that GCHQ's spying did not violate Britons' human rights and was a legitimate way to gather intelligence.

In February, a separate ruling by the IPT found that the spy agency's surveillance programme was unlawful because the processes governing how GCHQ gathered and shared information were not public enough.

Amnesty acknowledged these rulings in its statement but said the "secretive" nature of IPT hearings meant there was little transparency about the way GCHQ was being policed. This, it said, undermined the faith people had in official oversight of the agency.

Information that had come to light in the last 12 months showed, said Amnesty, that there were flaws in the oversight system. One revelation concerned arrangements GCHQ has with its US counterparts to get at data it would be difficult for the UK agency to get permission to acquire.

There were also loopholes in UK laws governing surveillance being exploited by GCHQ to expand its spying abilities, it said.

Kai despite me agreeing the bringing down of all this. DOES everyone really think these operations will ever cease.. they will just continue in a more covert way. I urge people to see that.. but I can see how limitations will make normal people feel more secure

@R00tz31820 I agree, but at the same time this needs to happen. Right now there are laws being created everywhere that legalise these activities making it possible for them to go unhindered. If we oppose these it makes it harder for the spies to spy on the joe blow citizen minding their own business, hopefully our opposition to this will also make it more expensive and again hopefully the cost of surveillance will deter the governments of the world. Not only that but lets say you are accused of eg. murder and the only thing that places you anywhere near the crime scene at that time was their illegal surveillance then they can't use that in court thus helping your case (in this example i'm hoping to god that you are innocent lol). its a whole lot of political and legal bs i know but we need to oppose these things in order to protect our rights as much as possible.

No let me make it clear.. I am ALL for you doing this. I just dont want people going in with the idea that something like this will ever stop. regardless of how expensive stuff is.. and hey if someone cant do Inet spying its still a viable option to send a spook in if its necessary