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GCHQ: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’ - Regulations governing access to intercepted information obtained by NSA breached human rights laws, according to Investigatory Powers Tribunal

07 February 2015

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"The regime that governs the sharing between Britain and the US of electronic communications intercepted in bulk was unlawful until last year, a secretive UK tribunal has ruled.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) declared on Friday that regulations covering access by Britain’s GCHQ to emails and phone records intercepted by the US National Security Agency (NSA) breached human rights law.... The critical judgment marks the first time since the IPT was established in 2000 that it has upheld a complaint relating to any of the UK’s intelligence agencies. It said that the government’s regulations were illegal because the public were unaware of safeguards that were in place. Details of those safeguards were only revealed during the legal challenge at the IPT."

See the article: UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’ - Regulations governing access to intercepted information obtained by NSA breached human rights laws, according to Investigatory Powers Tribunal (Guardian, link)

See: IPT Judgment(pdf) and IPT Order(pdf)

and see: ‘Enemy within’ GCHQ monitoring declared unlawful; and their sister organisations? (undercoverinfo, link)

and: GCHQ-NSA intelligence sharing unlawful, says UK surveillance tribunal (Privacy International, link): "While we welcome today’s decision, Privacy International and Bytes for All disagree with the tribunal’s earlier conclusion that the forced disclosure of a limited subset of rules governing intelligence-sharing and mass surveillance is sufficient to make GCHQ’s activities lawful as of December 2014. Both organisations will shortly lodge an application with the European Court of Human Rights challenging the tribunal’s December 2014 decision."

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