An appeals court in the UK has declared the UK Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (the so-called Snooper’s Charter) illegal. The judges ruled that the law provided insufficient safeguards. As you’d expect, the government trotted out the usual specter of the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse featuring, of course, child pornography.
Doubtless the government will make whatever minimal changes are required to satisfy the judges so that they can get back to spying on their citizens. Still, this is encouraging news of the sort too seldom heard.
I wish the courts here in the U.S. would show similar gumption. One thing for sure: we can’t depend on Congress to protect us from these snoops. As a result, we have a secret court issuing rulings that—if current news is to be believed—were obtained by the FBI’s withholding of information from the court.
Maybe next time.