Seven ISPs Take Legal Action Against GCHQ 65
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes with this excerpt from the BBC: ISPs from the U.S., UK, Netherlands, and South Korea have joined forces with campaigners Privacy International to take GCHQ to task over alleged attacks on network infrastructure. It is the first time that GCHQ has faced such action. The ISPs claim that alleged network attacks, outlined in a series of articles in Der Spiegel and the Intercept, were illegal and "undermine the goodwill the organizations rely on."
The complaint (PDF).
Well now. (Score:2, Insightful)
Good luck with that.
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Yes, I offer them Good Luck too.
We should reward companies for the things that they do well, and for the good.
Punish them for the things that they do bad. All Carrot or all Stick approach doesn't work.
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...All Carrot or all Stick approach doesn't work.
And the carrot stick approach is pretty useless also...
unless you're trying to get rid of ranch dressing!
Re:WTF (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Informative)
GCHQ is one of those things known better by the acronym than their full name. ... you know.
Even their homepage does not tell you what it stands for. I could tell you, but then
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
My guess would be General Communication Head Quarters
UK has lots of secret government organisations, that answer directly to the PM and cabinet, not to parliament.
MI5, MI6, Special Branch, UNIT and TORCHWOOD
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And here I thought it was Guitar Center. I could understand people being a little upset with them, but...
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I'm not sure the TORCHWOOD reference will mean much to the /. crowd. It should though, excellent series!
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Right, because Doctor Who isn't associated with nerds or anything like that.
Well, actually I would guess that the nerd association with Doctor Who is rather less pronounced than, say, everything Star Trek.
The anniversary episode was a major event here in Europe, for instance, certainly extending well beyond geekdom. Maybe that is different in the US.
But back to the Torchwood spin-off, I don't think I'd seen it referred to here /. so I guess I just presumed it hadn't been a thing in the US.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Informative)
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UK has lots of secret government organisations, that answer directly to the PM and cabinet, not to parliament. ... and TORCHWOOD
The funny thing is, they COULD now name a secret organization TORCHWOOD. All of the Doctor Who references would pop up and the real organization would be buried in the noise.
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Government Communications Headquarters seems to have been cover for Bletchley Park in 1939 along with terms like BP, Station X. Even GC&CS was used as a cover name for the GCHQ.
Re: WTF (Score:1)
ISP = Internet Service Preventer
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Der Spiegel - Distributed Enhanced Reprint of Soviet Propaganda In East Germany, Electronic edition.
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At least tell us what the acronyms mean in the summary shithead.
Ok, from Wikipedia...
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. Internet service providers may be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned.
The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the British government and armed forces.
The British Broadca
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In the spirit of the above suggestions, I presume the FBI is the Farming Board of Investigation and the CIA is the Central Idiots Agency.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
ISPs = plural of ISP
U.S. = United States
shithead = mirror
How are they going to get proof? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article, it seems like the only ISP that was named in the Snowden leaks as being a target of NSA/GCHQ data collection was Belgacom, a Belgian ISP. I'm not sure how the law works in the UK, but in the US, all of the suits against the NSA so far have failed because the NSA can refuse to provide evidence. The only ISP they have direct evidence for is Belgacom, which does not appear to be a plaintiff in this lawsuit. If GCHQ can withhold evidence, how do they plan to prove that they were targeted?
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And even if they do, the ISPs can go to the EU supreme court. The UK could of course bluntly refuse to obeey their orders, but the Tatcher method of threatening to leave the EU could these days trigger a response in the way of "then leave if you like".
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And even if they do, the ISPs can go to the EU supreme court.
There is no EU supreme court, Johan.
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*cough* The European Court of Justice [wikipedia.org] has ultimate jurisdiction if plaintiffs can show that GCHQ violated any EU ordinance.
(Whether that is the case I'll leave up to the lawyers, but it's certainly not unlikely that they can find something...)
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*cough* The European Court of Justice has ultimate jurisdiction if plaintiffs can show that GCHQ violated any EU ordinance.
Did you even read the page you're quoting? The ECJ is not a Supreme Court, as national cases cannot be appealed to the ECJ. Even if you were confused with the ECHR, you're still mistaken. The ECHR only takes on cases involving human rights (i.e., no patent cases) and is limited to the interpretation of European Convention on Human Rights. Furthermore, the SCOTUS (with limited exceptions) only handles appeals cases.
The Supreme Court has a much broader horizon when it comes to legal issues, most notably t
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The ECHR only takes on cases involving human rights (i.e., no patent cases) and is limited to the interpretation of European Convention on Human Rights.
"The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has reinforced the right of individuals to access the internet," (from a page describing some of the rights one has, as determined by the ECHR)
The ECJ is not a Supreme Court, as national cases cannot be appealed to the ECJ.
This is a language problem. The ECJ is a "higher" court, right? If the ECJ rules something, the EU Member State must abide by that ruling, even if a more local court has already ruled differently? If so, then the ECJ is a superior court. If there is no court above which can be petitioned to hear the matter, they they ar
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If the ECJ rules something, the EU Member State must abide by that ruling, even if a more local court has already ruled differently? If so, then the ECJ is a superior court. If there is no court above which can be petitioned to hear the matter, they they are the supreme court.
I totally follow your line of thinking, I just slightly disagree. The EU is a not a country. It is a group of countries which have a bunch of treaties together, making them close friends. The ECJ hears and rules on disagreements between countries.
The ECHR only rules based on the ECHR, and can only marginally touch the "local" member states' parliaments decisions (local laws) and practices.
The SCOTUS is the highest legal authority for a federation. If you'd like a EU comparison: Germany is a federation.
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The SCOTUS makes decisions based on the US constitution, not on a bunch of treaties between member states.
The US Constitution is a treaty between 13 original sovereign states. The members of the EU are called "member States" and the members of the USA are called states.
Also note that the US Supreme Court isn't the supreme court over every legal matter in the USA. A state or local matter that doesn't invoke Constitutional protections will end up in the state high court, and isn't appealable to the federal level or Supreme Court without invoking a new Constitutional claim.
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No single court has been appointed the Supreme Court of the European Union, with jurisdiction of every legal matter in the EU. SCOTUS does have jurisdiction over pretty much every legal matter in the US.
The US Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over all legal matters in the US. Specifically, it has no jurisdiction over state law, unless that law conflicts with federal law. In this respect it resembles the European Court of Justice quite a bit.
Jurisdiction over federal law (including treaties to which the federation is a party)? Both. Jurisdiction over member state law not in conflict with federal law? Neither. Jurisdiction in disputes about federal law between member states? Both. Jurisdiction in oth
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So no, the ECJ or ECHR are NOT an equivalent of the United States Supreme Court.
I never claimed that the ECJ was anything like the SCOTUS, only that it was a supreme court, as in "the highest judicial tribunal in a political unit" (Merriam-Webster [merriam-webster.com]), or specifically as in a court that makes final judicial decisions that bind lower courts and is not subject to any other court.
And no, I was not thinking about the ECHR. Even if this case might tangentially touch upon European human right law, I am well aware that the ECHR is not an EU court.
Did you even read the page you're quoting? The ECJ is not a Supreme Court, as national cases cannot be appealed to the ECJ.
You (as a citizen) cannot appeal a case to the EC
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LOL. This is the intelligence world we're talking about. There are no courts.
This particular complaint will be heard by a special tribunal that meets in secret, makes secret decisions, and has ruled against the intelligence agencies in less than 1% of all cases it's heard - they do publish the fact that a hearing took place, mostly, we think, of course if they didn't we'd have know way to know so the real number is probably much less than 1%.
The UK has much worse accountability structures in place than even
Re:How are they going to get proof? (Score:5, Informative)
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The standard of proof is "on the balance of probabilities", so with the Snowden files, some customer testimonials and some accounting data the onus would very much be on GCHQ to prove their innocence.
Chances are they will try to wriggle out of it on some other grounds, rather than mount a defence.
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Thats the classic way.
The UK gov will take any cleared staff or past cleared staff, press, academics to court, expose some aspect of their lives to a tame, friendly press then just drop the case.
The UK gov will have not confirmed any material in open court but ensured any further statements by cleared staff or past cleared staff, press, academics will be seen along side the new spin.
Sealed courts do
But but but... (Score:2, Insightful)
"We're GCHQ and are therefore free to act in any way we see fit."
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"We are above the law, it's to keep the peons under our control NOT vice versa."
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GCHQ: Outside the government, beyond the police. tagline suits them well.
There will be GCHQ workers reading /. (Score:1)
So, guys, any of you want to give your take on this?
Go on - present your case on its merits.
Thought not.
There will be GCHQ workers reading /. (Score:2)
Once the information had spread to the public, further feeding a political crisis by going to court was seen as unproductive by the UK gov.
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Sorry, but they had a lot to hide. What you really mean is that government rules about what's prohibited are often extremely evil. And I agree with that.
I'm confused... (Score:2)
The UK knows the USA can turn off the shared sites over any military or political issues at any time. The US has only agreed to share its methods and hardware for UK sites. That gives the no UK leverage if it really faces a conflict the USA has no interest in or wants a different outcome - Falkland, Diego Garcia.
De
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Two strawpersons in three lines. Must be a