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title: NGOs Challenge UK Government Surveillance at the European Court of Human Rights
date: 2017-11-06 00:43:00
updated: 2017-11-06 10:36:55
author: remission
tags: update, pressemitteilung, massenueberwachung
On Tuesday 7 November, three joined cases brought by civil liberties and human rights organisations challenging UK Government surveillance will be heard in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
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*Big Brother Watch and Others v UK* will be heard alongside *10 Human
Rights Organisations and Others v UK* and the *Bureau of Investigative
Journalism and Alice Ross v UK*, four years after the initial
application to the ECtHR. \[1\]
Big Brother Watch, English PEN, Open Rights Group and Constanze Kurz
made their application to the Court in 2013 following Edward Snowden’s
revelations that UK intelligence agencies were running a mass
surveillance and bulk communications interception programme, TEMPORA, as
well as receiving data from similar US programmes, PRISM and UPSTREAM,
interfering with citizens’ right to privacy. \[2\]
The case questions the legality of the indiscriminate surveillance of UK
citizens and the bulk collection of their personal information and
communications by UK intelligence agencies under the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). The UK surveillance regime under RIPA
was untargeted, meaning that EU citizens’ personal communications and
information was collected at random without any element of suspicion or
evidence of wrongdoing, and this regime was effective indefinitely.
The surveillance regime is being challenged on the grounds that there
was no sufficient legal basis, no accountability, and no adequate
oversight of these programmes, and as a result infringed citizens’
Article 8 right to a private life.
In 2014, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism made an application to
the ECtHR, followed by ten Human Rights Organisations and others in 2015
after they received a judgment from the UK Investigatory Powers
Tribunal. All three cases were joined together, and the
Court exceptionally decided that there would be a hearing.
The result of these three cases has the potential to impact the current
UK surveillance regime under the Investigatory Powers Act. This legal
framework has already been strongly criticized by the Court of Justice
of the European Union in *Watson*. A judgment in this case will finally
push the UK Government to constrain these wide-ranging surveillance
powers, implement greater judicial control and introduce greater
protection such as notifying citizens that they have been put under
surveillance.
Daniel Carey of Deighton Pierce Glynn, solicitor for Big Brother Watch,
Open Rights Group, English PEN and Constanze Kurz, said: “Historically,
it has required a ruling from this Court before improvements in domestic
law in this area are made. Edward Snowden broke that cycle by setting in
motion last year’s Investigatory Power Act, but my clients are asking
the Court to limit bulk interception powers in a much more meaningful
way and to require significant improvements in how such intrusive
powers are controlled and reported.”
Griff Ferris, Researcher at Big Brother Watch, said: “This case raises
long-standing issues relating to the UK Government’s unwarranted
intrusion into people’s private lives, giving the intelligence agencies
free reign to indiscriminately intercept and monitor people’s private
communications without evidence or suspicion. UK citizens who are not
suspected of any wrongdoing should be able to live their lives in both
the physical and the digital world safely and securely without such
Government intrusion. If the Court finds that the UK Government
infringed UK citizens’ right to privacy, this should put further
pressure on the Government to implement measures to ensure that its
current surveillance regime doesn’t make the same mistakes.”
Antonia Byatt, Interim Director of English PEN, said: “More than four
years since Edward Snowden’s revelations and nearly one year since the
Investigatory Powers Act was passed, this is a landmark hearing that
seeks to safeguard our privacy and our right to freedom of expression.
The UK now has the most repressive surveillance legislation of any
western democracy, this is a vital opportunity to challenge the
unprecedented erosion of our private lives and liberty to communicate.”
Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group, said: “Mass
surveillance must end. Our democratic values are threatened by the fact
of pervasive, constant state surveillance. This case gives the court the
opportunity to rein it back, and to show the British Government that
there are clear limits. Hoovering everything up and failing to explain
what you are doing is not acceptable.”
**Links:**
\[1\] The ECtHR hearing [on 7 November
2017](http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=hearings/calendar&c=#n1353927184398_pointer)
\[2\] [privacynotprism.org.uk/](https://www.privacynotprism.org.uk/)
\[3\] [British government to answer fast-track spy
challenge](http://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2014/gchq-egmr)
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