Does The 'Snoopers Charter' Also Enshrine Lying In Court? (theregister.co.uk) 123
The U.K.'s newly-based Investigatory Powers Act (the Snoopers' Charter) "allows the State to tell lies in court," according to The Register, saying it enshrines into law "the practice where prosecutors lie about the origins of evidence to judges and juries." Jigsy shares their report:
The operation of the oversight and accountability mechanisms...are all kept firmly out of sight -- and, so its authors hope, out of mind -- of the public. It is up to the State to volunteer the truth to its victims if the State thinks it has abused its secret powers. "Marking your own homework" is a phrase which does not fully capture this...
Section 56(1)(b) creates a legally guaranteed ability -- nay, duty -- to lie about even the potential for State hacking to take place, and to tell juries a wholly fictitious story about the true origins of hacked material used against defendants in order to secure criminal convictions. This is incredibly dangerous. Even if you know that the story being told in court is false, you and your legal representatives are now banned from being able to question those falsehoods and cast doubt upon the prosecution story. Potentially, you could be legally bound to go along with lies told in court about your communications -- lies told by people whose sole task is to weave a story that will get you sent to prison or fined thousands of pounds.
Section 56(1)(b) creates a legally guaranteed ability -- nay, duty -- to lie about even the potential for State hacking to take place, and to tell juries a wholly fictitious story about the true origins of hacked material used against defendants in order to secure criminal convictions. This is incredibly dangerous. Even if you know that the story being told in court is false, you and your legal representatives are now banned from being able to question those falsehoods and cast doubt upon the prosecution story. Potentially, you could be legally bound to go along with lies told in court about your communications -- lies told by people whose sole task is to weave a story that will get you sent to prison or fined thousands of pounds.
Re: Judges and Lawyers obsolete (Score:1)
It would seen the defense could bring up this law to cast doubt on the prosecution even if the prosecution wasn't lying.
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And then promptly get arrested for implying forbidden implications.
Check it out: it's a law that cannot be brought up in court.
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What's the point of having a court like this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Courts are suppose to get to the TRUTH of the matter and decide what to do based on TRUTH. What's the point of having a court where the government is allowed to lie, expected to lie, and the people being lied about are required to act like the law is the truth?
Re:What's the point of having a court like this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Supposedly (playing devil's advocate) they are telling the truth about the evidence. They are not allowed to lie about what the evidence is, only how it was obtained. Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue. There has been more than one trial in the US where officers found a murder weapon or other evidence to convict a person of murder and then the conviction is overturned, not because the evidence was wrong but the officers didn't have the right paperwork. The reasoning behind this was the protection of the 4th Amendment was more important than a few murder convictions. They've been chafing against this limitation in the law for decades. Here in the US under the UnPatriotic Act we now have secret warrants. Supposedly they have a warrant but no one can see it. Imagine that in a free society. May God damn everyone who voted for the UnPatriotic Act. The foundations of the Republic are more important than thousands of deaths. Tearing down freedom will result in Millions of deaths.
Re:What's the point of having a court like this? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't be bothered to follow the few evidentiary rules we have, present a truthful case, with being truthful about how you got said evidence for the case, then how can I be bothered to believe that the evidence itself is true? Take your word for it?
I do mostly agree with your take on this. Just responding to the question.
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Here is the problem, it is VERY simple.
Say they used remote snooping to collect the evidence, and they therefore his that.
They may claim they physically accessed the computer during a later legal raid (made legal by that evidence) and collected this evidence, however
perhaps when they did that they found nothing - but they are now entited to pretend they did.
Now, here is the problem. What if their remote collection ended up on the wrong network/computer (perhaps via wifi the neighbours, who were the real cul
Re:What's the point of having a court like this? (Score:5, Interesting)
" Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue."
Unfortunately far to many people believe in this line of garbage.
In a basic logic test any information withheld, even if by omission makes evidence untrue. The act of obtaining something illegally creates vice and calls into question the motivations surrounding the evidence collection process.
The very act of suppressing any part of the evidence, the process in which the evidence was gathered and people responsible for gathering that evidence makes the evidence corrupt. It will not possible to find out if someone that hates you was part of the process. It will not be possible to discover if any corruption is also holding back exculpatory evidence in the process. It will not be possible to examine for just plain honest mistakes, bugs, miscalculations, or just plain laziness in the evidence gathering or reporting process.
The "Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue." crowd has put a lot of innocent people in jail. I know you said you were just playing devils advocate but you brought up a serious issue that plagues that human mind and the Justice system very extensively!
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In a basic logic test any information withheld, even if by omission makes evidence untrue. The act of obtaining something illegally creates vice and calls into question the motivations surrounding the evidence collection process.
No, a basic logic test says that the presence or absence of evidence and how or why it was gathered doesn't change the truth. It could certainly call into question the validity of the evidence, but often it's just the foot in the door or it is no more questionable than say the motives of a witness. If somebody finds a kidnapping victim chained in my basement, it doesn't matter if it is a reasonable or unreasonable search, warrant or no warrant, police or a burglar or an electrician I legally permitted entry
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How it's obtained and what it is are two independent things and you're conflating them.
As are whether it's true and whether it is (or should be) admissible.
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"the State decides what is legal and is not, and there's nothing we can do about it."
Not with that attitude you won't. People have fought for their freedoms as long as we've been around. If you give up, you will surely be enslaved.
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We have rules in place because they were imposed from above. Mobs never did anything good for anyone. Get over yourself, Trump supporter.
So the entire civil rights movement never did any good for anyone? Really, who is this stupid? Only the ubiquitous and ignorant AC.
Sounds like you are being paid by some factor of the authoritarian left to "Speak power to truth," squash and squelch any dissent, and spread the message that the government is the ultimate authority and they know what is Best.
I miss the days when liberalism included a broad base of people who questioned authority, who rejected the notion that the government knew better than t
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True statement, however they were just that, the extremes, relegated to the outer edges of the bell curve, deevs apart from the mainstream expression of the party ethic. Now both parties seem to have adopted extreme positions as their main charter. The thugginess is now enshrined in their core tenets, not some deniably convenient release valve for the more "avid" members.
If this inexorable slide into sensationalism and pseudo-fanaticism is where the future is heading, please excuse me while I DON'T keep u
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They are not allowed to lie about what the evidence is, only how it was obtained. Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue.
Right. It only means that someone's basic rights have been violated, and that's why the rules of evidence typically demand that any evidence gathered illegally by law enforcement be thrown out, so as to discourage breaking of the law by those who are meant to enforce it. Basic logic demands that any evidence for which a proper chain cannot be demonstrated be assumed to have been gathered illegally and discarded on the same basis.
Here in the US under the UnPatriotic Act we now have secret warrants. Supposedly they have a warrant but no one can see it. Imagine that in a free society.
I'm still trying to imagine a free society. My imagination won't permit it with
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Just because evidence was obtained by illegal means such as a search without a warrant doesn't mean that the evidence is untrue.
Without knowing the chain of evidence, it's difficult to impossible to prove whether the evidence is true or not. The planting of evidence happens more often than it should (i.e., never).
It sounds almost like this law is designed to discredit political opponents. State actors keep a trove of electronic child pornography material and bring cases against anyone those in power do not like. The child pornography itself is real, but since it's now illegal to question where it came from, the defense cannot dis
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The idea that illegally obtained evidence should not be valid is a dishonour of justice. Breaking the law to obtain it is not ri
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The UK gov wanted to keep the GCHQ's decryption ability away from academics, the media, police/courts who sold information to interesting people.
Few details about the ability to track Irish groups of interest down to one person, breaking up any value in a cell structure was going to be make it to court.
The use of teams of cars, trucks, vans, helicopters, satellite, total access to every part of Irelands telco syste
The law doesn't actually say they can lie (Score:5, Interesting)
The law actually says they're not allowed to talk about anything they found by spying, or any spying methods. Nowhere does it give them permission to lie about any of it. Obviously some people will lie, but this law doesn't actually permit them to do so.
The first part of the law, saying they can't use the content of any conversation they've snooped on in court, has good and bad consequences, but I think that part is good overall because spying, which by it's nature must be sneaky, should be kept seperate from law enforcement, which should be as transparent as practicable. This is one way the US screwed up after 9-11, IMHO.
Prior to 9-11 in the US, the FBI and other law enforcement handled criminal matters, and were required by law to get search warrants, etc. The CIA and other spies were allowed to do things that police weren't allowed to do, BUT they weren't allowed to use that information in a criminal case or give the information to the FBI. So the intelligence agencies could spy on North Korean agents, and the FBI would investigate drug dealers, each working under rules appropriate* for their job. After 9-11, at was determined that it would be more effective if the CIA/NSA and FBI and other agencies cooperated more, sharing information. Maybe it's more effective in some ways, but it has meant that the NSA has become involved in simple criminal investigations of citizens. That's bad. The spy stuff should be reserved for national security stuff, IMHO.
* Obviously there can be, and has been, much debate about what's appropriate, but clearly what's appropriate for national security intelligence operations may be different than what's appropriate for domestic criminal investigations.
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"The law actually says they're not allowed to talk about anything they found by spying, or any spying methods. Nowhere does it give them permission to lie about any of it."
If you are allowed to submit "unverifiable" or what I call inscrutable evidence then it is every bit a legal permission to lie. If the process or method that created it was untrue or contained lies in its motivations then yes... it is in fact "carte blanche" permission to lie to the court.
If you cannot figure out how fast or often people
That's why the evidence isn't admissable (Score:2)
> If you are allowed to submit "unverifiable" or what I call inscrutable evidence
This law says they are NOT allowed to submit the evidence found by spying. That's an important step, though not sufficient by itself.
The issue that arises then is if the spies find out about some criminal activity, and tell law enforcement about it, law enforecement might search the house to get admissible evidence. However, if the search is challenged, if the police are asked "why did you search?" - well that's a problem
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You've pretty much described "parallel construction".
No information, nothing to construct (Score:2)
It is similar to parallel construction, but somewhat different (at least for one definition of parallel construction).
One definition of "parallel construction" would be:
The intelligence agency provides some specific information to the police.
The police make up some BS story about how they got that information.
The police use that information as probable cause for a search.
There's no ideal solution, of the spies find an ongoing serious crime, but this is an improvement:
The intelligence agency gives no specifi
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I'm no legal expert, but does this not depend on the rules of corroboration in the relevant jurisdiction? For example, I think in Scotland it wouldn't be enough for a witness to say they heard the accused say something, whether a lie or not. The evidence has to be corroborated in some way before it will be accepted. (I'm not sure if a second lying spy would count as corroboratio
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Wrong.
They are not allowed to lie about the content, but they ARE allowed to lie about the source, that is the problem.
So, they can happily claim that something they thought they found by remote network access on Xs computer (but was actually on Ys computer
because remote network access is shaky.. perhaps Y was surfing Xs wifi at the time..) will claim to have been physically found on Xs computer.
Therefore, instead of being able to defend the actual facts by checking the collection method, X is left with no
Here's the text of the law, which subsection is th (Score:3)
> They are not allowed to lie about the content, but they ARE allowed to lie about the source
Here's the actual text of the law. Where exactly do you see that? I see that by the plain words of the law they "may not disclose ... any content of an intercepted communication", I don't see any authorization to disclose the content and lie about the source.
(1) No evidence may be adduced, question asked, assertion or disclosure made or other thing done in, for the purposes of or in connection with any legal pr
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I see that by the plain words of the law they "may not disclose ... any content of an intercepted communication", I don't see any authorization to disclose the content and lie about the source.
You stopped too soon. Read the rest of the text. The key phrases are "discloses, in circumstances from which its origin in interception-related conduct may be inferred ... or tends to suggest that any interception-related conduct has or may have occurred or may be going to occur". As long as they disguise the origin enough to protect their secret spying program they can use the intercepted content however they want. The point of this clause isn't to protect the public from misuse of the intercepted communic
Agreed on the purpose. Hopeful for a side-effect (Score:2)
> The point of this clause isn't to protect the public from misuse of the intercepted communications, it's to keep the interception program itself out of the public eye.
Agreed, absolutely. And one way to keep it out of the public eye is to not have it involved in public trials, aka criminal cases. If they can't legally reveal the source of the information amd they can't *legally* lie about the source, than they can't really use the information for criminal prosecution without breaking the law. Hope
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If they can't legally reveal the source of the information amd they can't *legally* lie about the source, than they can't really use the information for criminal prosecution without breaking the law.
They'll still use it, after coming up with an alternate explanation for how the information was obtained. They won't even have to lie, exactly—once they use the secret interception to identify their target, they'll go back and perform a public and apparently above-board investigation based on those results (perhaps laundered via an "anonymous tip" from a "concerned citizen"); the results from that investigation are the ones they supply to the court. Of course, the public investigation never would have
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In fascism (and its precursors), "TRUTH" is whatever those in power want it to be. The "snoopers-charter" is just one step in a logical progression that leads to an inevitable catastrophe at the end. Those that want to control and dominate others have no restraint and no ethics.
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But now we're in a post-truth world. Take that, fascism!
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Fuck Orwell, he went and wrote a how-to manual for these bastards.
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Sadly all democratic States appear to have embraced efficiency as the metric of success above all else. Random destruction of individuals is the result. The joke that life is ruled by "doing the right thing" became the opposite of reality once politicians declared it as their goal. Here is a tip to guide your life by. Just take any slogan that politicians declare and realize that they are saying it because they know for sure that they are either implementing policies that have the opposite effect or that it
Kafkaesque? (Score:1)
Vaguely reminiscent of The Trial...
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Brexit is non-binding.
Getting 52% is getting 52%.
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The European Union is unusual among political groupings in that it has steadfastly resisted the panopticon whether by businesses or States. Sadly fascism has managed to defeat this in the UK using the nationalist bandwagon and promoting hatred for immigrants. Minority pressure groups will soon find themselves imprisoned as quickly as they are in basket case countries like Turkey, Egypt or North Korea. The brief flowering of representative democracy is coming to an end all over the world. China is soon going
Re: *sigh* again... this is what you get.... (Score:1)
The EU is socialist? You have just proved that like all the other Brexiters you are totally clueless. The EU is not socialist, it aims to promote capitalist trade within Europe.
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On top of that, it'll make it easier to get rid of all that oiky stuff like employment rights and health and safety.
Full speed ahead to the 1880s!
Re:*sigh* again... this is what you get.... (Score:4, Informative)
UK (AFAIK) doesn't have a written constitution
Technically, we have a written, but not codified constitution.
1. Brexit: Cameron just 'randomly' "CHOSE" majority (50%+1) as the requirement for Brexit
Nope, he didn't choose anything. Unlike the previous referendum, there was nothing in the act about what would happen if it passed, which was part of the problem. There was no provision in the bill stating requirements for either side to win, nor what happened if they did. As a result, the referendum has no more legal force than an opinion poll. That's not a problem with not having a codified constitution (the US, for example, has no provisions for referenda in its constitution, so would be in a similar situation if a poorly worded referendum act passed in Congress), that's a problem with politicians not thinking through the consequences of their actions. If you have a solution for that problem, most of the world would be interested in hearing it...
2. Scottish Independence vote... again... just randomly made up rules at the time by the PM to decide things
This referendum was held because it was an election promise by the party that won the majority (if memory serves, in fact all) of the seats representing Scotland.
The Queen can just DISSOLVE Parliament whenever she wants... and force new elections
That's technically true, but not really relevant as it would trigger a constitutional crisis if it ever did happen (as I recall, Australia and Canada have similar clauses in their constitutions). As of the Fixed Term Parliament Act, the government can no longer call a general election with a simple vote and a majority of one of the MPs that bother to turn up. That's largely a superficial distinction though, because a general election can be triggered by a vote of no confidence, which requires a simple majority.
This nonsense that can't even be challenged in court because there is no such thing as a "First Amendment" in the UK
This can be challenged in court, and almost certainly will be (I know of one challenge that's already been launched, there will no doubt be others). It's likely to be in violation of the ECHR, so can be challenged in all of the way up to the European Court of Human Rights. In this respect, the UK is luckier than the USA, because to bring a case to overturn a law in the USA, you must show someone who has been harmed by the law in question. In the UK, laws can be challenged on the basis that they permit hypothetical harm and the judiciary can require that they be amended to avoid that hypothetical from becoming reality. This is particularly important in cases like this, where it's very difficult to prove harm because the evidence is classified and exempt from FOIA requests because of national security.
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Why are Americans so absolutely certain they know absolutely everything about the laws, customs and culture of countries they've never visited & couldn't even point to on a map?
There should be a unit. The dY - deciyank. Log (amount they think they know / amount they actually know)
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You need two votes of no confidence, within a certain time... But it's not that superficial a difference. The only way to achieve a general election through this route is a public statement to the effect that the current government is a failure and needs to be replaced.
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Solution (Score:4, Informative)
So fire your lawyer and state the truth yourself if they're too chicken-shit to oppose a bad law. Insist on a jury trial. Jurors are getting pretty good at the whole jury nullification thing. BTW, it is NOT illegal to tell the jury they can nullify the law - just that judges don't like it and will punish you for it - and their doing so will make the jury distrust the whole legal system.
Also, appeals courts have set aside convictions based on things like handing out flyers outside of courthouses to let jurors know their right to nullify a law, as well as convictions where no jury is present.
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So fire your lawyer and state the truth yourself if they're too chicken-shit to oppose a bad law. Insist on a jury trial. Jurors are getting pretty good at the whole jury nullification thing. BTW, it is NOT illegal to tell the jury they can nullify the law - just that judges don't like it and will punish you for it - and their doing so will make the jury distrust the whole legal system.
What country do you think this is?
Re:Solution (Score:4, Informative)
What country do you think this is?
I think that England has had jury nullification since the 17th century [wikipedia.org]. No?
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What country do you think this is?
I think that England has had jury nullification since the 17th century [wikipedia.org]. No?
All countries have, that is the point of a jury. But it isn't a thing that sticks like in the US because acquitals can be appealed everywhere else. It just pushes the case to the next level.
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Are you sure about that? Because I've never heard of it happening in England.
A mistrial is not an acquittal, before anyone starts.
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As if the government doesn't already lie in trials? Not turning over exculpatory evidence, continuing to argue for a conviction even when they finally realize that they are wrong, Not letting the defence know that they've uncovered an eye witness who disputes the alleged facts. Claiming a test result is beyond a reasonable doubt when it isn't?
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Sadly most juries in the UK are not sophisticated enough to care about stuff like this. There is a general tendency to believe and support the police, even when they break the law to get the person they think did it.
Worse still, in the case of terrorism the jury might not even see the evidence. It can be shown to the judge in private, not even the accused can see it. The judge is supposed to question it and will then tell the jury something like "there is secret evidence, but I'm satisfied that it's reliabl
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The judge can interrupt if they want and tell the to ignore the argument, but until the jury has made their deliberation, the judge has no way of knowing what effect, if any, it has on the case. So no, the judge won't swap jurors out during the trial.
What judges have done is grilled the jurors and demanded they change their decision to be in line with the law, and jurors have said nope, we represent the people, and we don't believe anyone could find the law just in these circumstances. That's how we struck
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Wrong. The most the judge can do is declare a mis-trial. Declaring the alleged perp in contempt of court is too prejudicial to the jury to continue the trial. So, keep getting mis-trials until they get tired of it - or if the judge doesn't declare a mis-trial, move for one on that basis. Or if the judge still refuses, appeal on the basis that the judge's actions were prejudicial to you.
A lawyer representing you can't do that because when a lawyer is held to be in contempt of court it has nothing to do with
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The UK fixed all that in the past with the National Technical Assistance Centre, Government Technical Assistance Centre.
The GCHQ/NSA would trapdoor backdoor crypto and the police would then get the result via court ready "Centre" staff in open or closed court.
The staff would then be the experts in court and show normal court sanctioned police methods got access to a device, network and a password was logged at some stage.
Any crypto then failed due to passwords been recorded as past
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A true verdict according to the evidence in some cases indicates that applying the law is unjust. And no, the jury's job is not just to decide if the defendant did what they are accused of, but also if it amounts to a crime. In the case of an unjust application of the law, they are free even under their oath to render a verdict taking into account all the evidence - including the law - and weighing it as they see fit. The law is also part of the evidence, and as such equally under judgment by a jury.
An exa
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"according to the evidence" does not imply "according to [the letter of] the law".
What it does imply is that I shouldn't find AmiMoJo guilty just because I think SJWs are complete cunts who are more concerned with grandstanding and outvirtuesignalling other SJWs than actual justice.
The Permanent Death of Truth (Score:4, Insightful)
All hail the Lie. And you want me to pledge my allegiance to you. Ha HA HA ha Ha hA
That's why they had to get our of EU (Score:4, Interesting)
Try to trace back when this Brexit thing started. It was some time after Snowden. When the EU started complaining about UK's abuses. They called it interference on national sovereignty. Then they started to push other reasons that would be more appealing to the public.
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Sooo why did Cameron, May, and the vast majority of people who passed this law both want to and campaign for staying in the EU? Bit of a hole in your logic there.
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Cameron did. May? She did more hedging than Country File & Gardeners' World put together.
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http://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/resources/images/5233955.jpg?display=1&htype=0&type=responsive-gallery [stroudnews...rnal.co.uk]
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The petition has been evaluated, and ignored:
"The Investigatory Powers Act dramatically increases transparency around the use of investigatory powers. It protects both privacy and security and underwent unprecedented scrutiny before becoming law."
Fair point about the scrutiny: several Parliamentary committees ripped it to shreds, the House of Lords ripped it to shreds, there was a huge amount of outcry against it. Instead, Comrade Corbyn the Messiah expressed his utter disgust at the intrusiveness by not bo
So government can convict anyone they like. (Score:1)
Just target a person and plant child porn on any of their devices (given the hacking capabilities of GCHQ, just about anybody can be targeted), then (legally) lie about this in court - and there you go, that's all you need to imprison pretty much anyone.
That's one of the most dangerous laws there is.
What me worry? (Score:5, Funny)
So there are still oversight and accountability mechanisms? Phew, I was worried there for a second that there wouldn't be. There must be nothing to see here, moving along.
Did they just shoot themselves in the foot? (Score:2)
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Yes. It would appear to be a basic knowledge of English.
What's the point? (Score:2)
So, what's the point of having a court system, if the truth no longer has meaning under this section of law? Why waste state and taxpayer money if the prosecution can basically manufacture evidence, then lie about where it came from? Just suspend the jury system, you're just wasting their time when one side is allowed, or even required, to lie in order to convict someone.
Why even have a public system at all? Just have "offenders" picked up by police, secret or not, and then disappear to prison, or simply
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The SAS solution was tried in Ireland. It works very well but needs huge support teams and has to be fully hidden from any outside comment.
The UK gov/mil cant work its way into the closed, isolated, inward looking faith based communities that it now has in so many of its cities the way it could in move around Ireland.
Mil/undercover police teams would get noticed, confronted in the public street in no go areas. Su
I'm not a lawyer, but... (Score:2)
Section 56(1)(b) creates a legally guaranteed ability -- nay, duty -- to lie about even the potential for State hacking to take place, and to tell juries a wholly fictitious story about the true origins of hacked material used against defendants in order to secure criminal convictions.
Doesn't it also say they may not present such evidence in the first place? ("No evidence may be adduced...")
So how/why would they then be able to/need to lie about where it came from?
Unconstitutional? (Score:2)
I'm guessing the courts would rule this law unconstitutional as abusing the separation of government and judiciary, but until someone can figure out how to get that question to the Supreme court, who knows what abuses will take place.
And if you raised the question of whether it is legal, haven't you already raised the issue itself contrary to the law? I can't imagine any judge accepting this nonsense.
Revolution (Score:1)
Watch it England. This is how you stoke a revolution. Everyone knows it'll be abused. Then abused more and more often until the lid blows off. Now you have a mess. Sometimes people lose their head.