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posted by janrinok on Friday December 23 2016, @07:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the they-can-wait dept.

The European Court of Justice has issued a major post-Brexit-decision ruling invalidating the UK's mass surveillance powers:

"General and indiscriminate retention" of emails and electronic communications by governments is illegal, the EU's highest court has ruled, in a judgment that could trigger challenges against the UK's new Investigatory Powers Act – the so-called snooper's charter.

Only targeted interception of traffic and location data in order to combat serious crime – including terrorism – is justified, according to a long-awaited decision by the European court of justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg.

The finding came in response to a legal challenge initially brought by the Brexit secretary, David Davis, when he was a backbench MP, and Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, over the legality of GCHQ's bulk interception of call records and online messages.

[...] Daniel Carey, the solicitor from Deighton Pierce Glynn who represented the Open Rights Group and Privacy International, said: "The court is very clear that indiscriminately retaining everyone's metadata is unlawful, which is a point my clients placed particular emphasis on. This prohibition arises out of longstanding EU legislation, which the UK played an important role in creating."

Also at NYT, WSJ, BBC, Bloomberg.

Ruling press release: The Members States may not impose a general obligation to retain data on providers of electronic communications services (PDF)


[Ed's Note: minor edit to first sentence at 232017zDec16]

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:35PM (#445185)

    Ehhhh, that is really just picky semantics unless there is a significant chance that brexit will not happen. Would their ruling have no teeth post-real-brexit?

  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Friday December 23 2016, @08:37PM

    by ledow (5567) on Friday December 23 2016, @08:37PM (#445203) Homepage

    It means the ruling is law for the next two years, minimum, and then will be absorbed into UK law.

    Then it would be up to Parliament to repeal that UK-inherited-from-the-EU law specifically.

    So it does matter - it says that this ruling is valid for two years, quite possibly longer.

    And there's an election in 2-and-a-bit year's time...

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 23 2016, @08:50PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday December 23 2016, @08:50PM (#445209) Journal

      I'm pretty sure the UK and almost any other sovereign nation can simply ignore such rulings or treaties, accepting whatever consequences that come as a result.

      That is to say, there is no need to comply with the ECJ, ECHR, Article 50, etc. They are all just formalities.

      Who is going to use economic sanctions or war to threaten the UK?

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      • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:11AM

        by isostatic (365) on Saturday December 24 2016, @12:11AM (#445304) Journal

        The same can be said of any decision from the Supreme Court, however id be very concerned to live in a country that ignores its judiciary.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:20PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @01:20PM (#445529) Journal

    unless there is a significant chance that brexit will not happen

    This. I wouldn't count Brexit as happening until it happens.