Civil Rights group Liberty says the High Court has ruled that MI5 must be held to the same standards as the police when they snoop on people in pursuit of criminial investigations (ie when it has nothing to do with spying or terrorism).
Lord Justice Singh and Mr Justice Holgate said in their ruling on Friday: When the security and intelligence agencies act for an ordinary criminal purpose, we cannot see any logical or practical reason why they should not be subject to the same legal regime as the police.
The mere fact that in general they operate in the field of national security cannot suffice for this purpose. It is the particular function in issue which is relevant.
Whilst this seems blindingly obvious to me, it is certainly not the way MI5 has behaved, regarding itself as above the law. In the past, one or two, otherwise sensible judges, have backed MI5's rather eccentric view.
A Liberty spokeswoman said:" Since 2016, the Investigatory Powers Act (otherwise known as the Snoopers' Charter) has provided state agencies access to our private communications and personal information regardless of whether they suspect us of any wrongdoing," she said.
"Data that can be accessed under the act includes telephone records, text messages, location history and internet browsing history."
In September 2020 a few media outlets said the Government was about to publish a "covert human intelligence sources bill". Rather excitable sources, such as
the Guardian and the BBC, described this as giving MI5 the right to allow its agents to break the law, short of murder (don't tell Colin Wallace). But I wonder if the true purpose of the legislation (if it is ever passed) was to get round the inevitable result of the legal action, now slithering into publication.
If we lived in a country with a free press matters like this would be openly discussed. Instead we live in a country "with the best media in the world" so everything is swept under the carpet.
https://securykid.com/mi5-must-obtain-snoops-permission-after-legal-defeat-of-landmark/
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/liberty-hails-landmark-win-over-mi5-mi6-and-gchq-327446/
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