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Ars Technica reports:
The UK government has quietly passed new legislation that exempts GCHQ, police, and other intelligence officers from prosecution for hacking into computers and mobile phones.
While major or controversial legislative changes usually go through normal parliamentary process (i.e. democratic debate) before being passed into law, in this case an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act was snuck in under the radar as secondary legislation. According to Privacy International, "It appears no regulators, commissioners responsible for overseeing the intelligence agencies, the Information Commissioner's Office, industry, NGOs or the public were notified or consulted about the proposed legislative changes... There was no public debate."
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday May 19 2015, @12:15AM
fuck no, the police do not have to break the law to do their jobs. in the US, police can have what's called "qualified immunity" [wikipedia.org] which protects "government officials ... from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known"; it basically grants some leniency to officers doing their jobs, in case they accidentally or unknowingly breaking the law or violate constitutional rights, but it does not protect officers' incompetence or intentional violations; something that is well-known or would obviously be a violation of the law or constitution is not covered by this.