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Privacy not Prism – UK legal challenge
- AndrewDucker 13y agoI just donated £20. I think it's worth making this as public as possible.
- Sprint 13y agoRant on: Why is it that people use "Prism" as synonym for the whole state of government surveillance? PRISM is one specific program of the NSA, there is much more and there is much worse (eg TEMPORA).
- sudomal 13y agoThe less focused the effort, the more diluted the message.
- Sprint 13y agoThat sounds vague and random. You could also say an un-focused effort misses the bigger picture.
- GunlogAlm 13y agoBecause people, including Brits, are more familiar with PRISM than TEMPORA. It has become synonymous with this scandal.
- rlongstaff 13y agoWorth pointing out that they can't make an application to the ECtHR until all legal appeals have been exhausted in the UK (Supreme Court?). Otherwise the application will be immediately rejected.
- thenomad 13y agoORG have a lot of very smart legal minds on their team. I've worked with some of them: I'm 100% sure they already know the legal issues. They'll do this the right way.
- arethuza 13y agoThey do describe the route they are taking - they asked the government and got referred to the "Investigatory Powers Tribunal" (IPT) but the ECtHR has already decided that the IPT is a bit dubious so they may entertain a direct approach.
- rmc 13y agoDepends. There have been cases in ECHR which didn't have national level court action first and drill succeeded, like the A B C v Ireland abortion ruling.
- brackin 13y agoPaypal blocked my card when trying to donate, won't start a conspiracy theory.
- frank_boyd 13y agoWhen they block you, block them back.
- rentnorove 13y agoNeeded a 2nd attempt for it to accept mine. Regardless, it's disappointing they're only offering paypal.
- spongle 13y agoWhy do people even still use paypal? Fucking infuriates me. It's safer to transfer your money in cash in a transparent bag with "steal me" on it.
- joelrunyon 13y agoWhat's the best P2P paypal alternative? I'm off of paypal for accepting payments but would love a solid alternative to sending money to people internationally (Chase Quickpay is great but you can't do international xfers).
- infinity0 13y agocomic sans ms, really?
- infinity0 13y agoahh, it looks like that's because I have remote fonts disabled (security) and it picked comic sans ms as the closest.. for some reason.
- lifebeyondfife 13y agoCSS font family defaults should be sensible. I thought the Comic Sans looked unprofessional until you pointed out that NoScript was blocking a dynamic font.
- ksrm 13y agoIt's times like this that I'm very glad the ECHR exists.
- cabalamat 13y agoIt is perhaps not surprising that the government wants to scrap it -- http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/sep/30/conservitives-scrap-human-rights-act http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/sep/30/conservitives-scr...
- arethuza 13y agoI was a bit vague on the European Convention on Human Rights - this article from the BBC is quite good: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/948143.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/948143.stm One particularly interesting point: "The UK was one of the first members of the Council of Europe to ratify the Convention when it passed through Parliament in 1951." Indeed, Chruchill seems to have been very keen on the idea - how ironic! http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/04/human-rights-act-conservatives http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009...
- GunlogAlm 13y agoIf UKIP had their way, we wouldn't be in the European Union or Council of Europe and would be withdrawn from the Human Rights Convention.
- deepvibrations 13y agoDonated :) Love seeing this sort of direct action!
- rayiner 13y agoI can't believe anyone still thinks international tribunals are a good idea. As if not bad enough for unelected judges to subvert democracy in their own county, but now you can have unelected judges in other countries subvert democracy in yours!
- DanBC 13y agoIn this case GCHQ might be operating illegally. So, we follow the legal process in our country. But then, if the Government is still breaking its own laws, we can go to the European courts to get justice. This is an important step in our justice system, and it's something that we are (mostly) proud of. There are a few problems.
- rmc 13y agoWhat's wrong with that? You have unelected judges deciding things in any country with a form of constitualial law. Not everything should be directly elected. A system where everything is decided by democracy can be bad too.
- tptacek 13y agoStipulate that our basis for comparison is the US just to keep things simple. First, a lot of angst and effort goes into circumscribing the powers of the federal judiciary precisely because they're unelected. They are for instance limited to hearing actual controversies involving parties with standing. Second, our constitutional system "works" because it follows from an actual constitution, which was ratified and over 200 years reshaped by elected representatives of the people. In no place in the US system is there an escape hatch for the Supreme Court to do whatever it thinks is right while contravening the constitution. A strong enough democratic majority can in fact force the Supreme Court to do anything, by amending the constitution.
- SEMW 13y ago> unelected judges to subvert democracy... If your definition of 'democracy' is a system of tyranny of the majority, where an elected government can do whatever it likes, create law in its own image without constitutional limit or fetter (for fear of 'subverting democracy'), then I don't particularly want to live in a democracy. And, thankfully, I don't. Liberal democracy (in the classical sense) has the principle of Rule of Law rather than Rule of Man, with associated elements of due process, human rights, etc. ranking as more important than political will. This necessarily entails a disinterested, unelected, apolitical judiciary to decide when the legislature or executive has breached your constitution / human rights document / etc. This seems to work out a hell of a lot better than the alternative. (Even if you reject that - and the UK in theory does have a system of Parliamentary sovereignty rather than legal sovereignty - it's still hardly 'subverting democracy'. The situation here is still the executive (GCHQ) may be acting in violation of the will of Parliament (as expressed in the HRA1998). Parliament delegates the task of deciding when the executive has violated its law to various judicial bodies, domestic and international).
- ommunist 13y agoThis is very dangerous initiative. Because if you loose such a case in the UK, British users will be doomed like forever.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoSo basically you're saying "don't fight it; you might lose"?
- jsingleton 13y agoYou can also donate to the Open Rights Group here: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/ It's Direct Debit (not credit card / paypal) which means less fees.