Showing posts with label amnesty international. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amnesty international. Show all posts

03 July 2015

GCHQ Amnesty International Spying Outrage As British Investigatory Powers Tribunal Court Admits Prior GCHQ Spooks "No Spying" Determination A Lie

     Friday, 3 July 2015, LONDON - Amnesty International the globally recognized human rights organization has called for an independent inquiry after the "outrageous" revelation on Thursday that Amnesty International was lied to by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) monkey court in a ruling last month that the already wildly out-of-control British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) mass surveillance conducted (lin conjunction with and/or sharing data with the N.S.A.) seemingly no longer with any apparent relationship to any legitimate national security concerns whatsoever but without any meaningful consideration invading the most intimate privacy without limitation of any foreign or domestic friend or foe maybe even itself and having extended GCHQ spying in addition to other lesser known human rights groups also now admitted further to include spying on Amnesty International despite previous denials including an impossibly improbable claimed "determination error" even by those ostensibly "overseeing" the GCHQ  spy agency.
     The GCHQ was described by whistleblower Edward Snowden in the movie "CitizenFour" as even more invasive than the N.S.A. which presumably would be out of all proportion to its unbridled violation of civil rights which it only could marginalize by capitalizing on people's fear of terrorism disrupting the measured governance of a free society. (Incidentally the exact aim of "terrorists".) IPT President Sir Michael Burton said the IPT "wished to apolgise for and correct an error in its Determination of 22 June 2015" in which the GCHQ oversight Monkey Court incredibly after 18 months of litigation apparently was unable to determine that the GCHQ was spying on Amnesty International although the IPT did figure out (wrongly) that the GCHQ was not following proper internal procedures in spying on another human rights Egyptian organization which the GCHQ in fact never had been spying on at all.
     To add insult to injury the Amnesty International secretary general Shalil Shetty in a statement of outrage which interested readers can read in some length by going to the first BBC link below emphasized that, "If they hadn't stored our communications for longer than they were allowed to, we would never even have known. What's worse, this would have been considered perfectly lawful."
     Mr. Shetty's outrage further was ignited by the fact that the UK (and likely partner N.S.A.) government mass surveillance jeopardized the very work of Amnesty International and other human rights groups by compromising their "confidential communications" with "human rights defenders and victims of abuse" which they now could "credibly believe" after these revelations of GCHQ spying "was likely to end up in the hands of governments" presumbly interfering with and/or negating critical humanitarian efforts of Amnesty International. Mr. Shetty's full reported statement of outrage linked to below as mentioned above concluded that "[t]he revelation that the UK government has been spying on Amnesty International highlights the gross inadequacies of the UK's surveillance legislation."
     It would seem so given that extraordinarily invasive powers apparently bestowed by the UK government on the outrageous spying activities of the GCHQ likely conspiring with its twin partner in crime the unconstitutional illegally operating N.S,A, for purposes intended to be focused on fighting terrorism instead being diverted instead or also to human rights organizations unbelievably including Amnesty International long recognized as one of the if not the most important and effective private organization working to protect human rights worldwide.
     As if to highlight the ignorance of the UK government regarding the misdirected uncontrolled mass surveillance predator it is allowing the GCHQ to become and the UK government's apparent ignorance of the either total intentional ineptitude and/or criminally willful ignorance of the IPT Monkey Court which apparently serves some essentially non-existent oversight role serving only to prolong the gross abuses of the GCHQ the UK government at the time of the original untruthful "Determination" of the IPT Monkey Court exalted it as the "IPTs confirmation that the interception by GCHQ in these cases was undertaken lawfully and proportionately."
     The horrendous cost in resources that are desperately needed for actual national security and the protection of human rights of this eighteen month matter are astounding considering that it would seem apparent to any rational person that the action originally brought in this matter by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Amnesty International if truthfully addressed with integrity could have been avoided altogether or resolved with the pertinent simple questions swiftly answered with a few communications among the responsible parties. However readers apparently must keep in mind the necessity of absolute secrecy in the "decision-making" of the IPT Monkey Court which apparently can span lengthy periods of time gathering the "facts" especially when for example as in this case there were two. In fact the IPT seems much like it may be the impaired cousin of the "FISA" Monkey Courts in the U.S. which is saying very little indeed.
     Those readers interested in an earlier most significant IPT Monkey Court decision predicate to the present one originally made in error can go to the second BBC link below to the "Determination" reported 5 December 2014 that the GCHQ's "Tempora" huge mass surveillance program unsurprisingly did not violate human rights reportedly encouraging the GCHQ as a glorious "emphatic victory". Alas with no degree of contortion can the present "Determination" be characterized no matter how small the Amnesty International victory may be for the moment although urged by its resounding cries of outrage clearly much needed revisions to surveillance litigation by the UK government and serious enforceable overhaul to the GCHQ's oversight are put in place to reign in an agency and program apparently badly off course.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33370406

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-30345801

Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved

26 October 2013

U.S. Justice Department "National Security" Division One More Reason To Feel Safe In Your Prison Cell

       Saturday, 26 October 2013, WASHINGTON, D.C. - The United States Department of "Justice" (DOJ) reportedly after more than five years of prosecuting criminal cases illegally withholding evidence from criminal defendants presumably now languishing in prisons around the Nation along with other rather variously unfortunate casualties of the "War On The U.S Constitution", under what the New York Times rather generously calls a "narrow" reading by DOJ's "National Security" Division (bet that makes readers sleep better knowing along with the rest of the crowd of federal military forces, other armed forces, secret forces, special forces, contract forces, departments, bureaus, agencies, committees and patrols we now may sleep peacefully with our empty wallets at our bedsides or locked up somewhere outside our prison cell knowing that we have even more lawyers in suits than we probably already even knew or suspected) violating the clearly established restraints of the U.S. Constitution in defense of that document from any and all terrorists so that we unequivocally, unflinchingly, unintelligibly may say: "We won. We beat ourselves. Hurrah!"
       What on earth could merit such a run-on sentence overspilling its banks in an unrestrained (being THEIR very least favorite MOST frightening thought) torrent of words in a conspicuously unbalanced paragraph fairly (or not) screaming to be CONTAINED! Well dear readers basically that would be the not altogether appealing idea of explaining all this. And why we the editorial board of the Ninth Amendment believe the New York Times in this case let DOJ off far too easily our interpretation being that the entire premise of the article to which the link below will lead is flawed to the extent the disclosure of this heinous behavior is any sort of reasoned "policy decision". We agree vigorously with Amnesty International that what we have here is a pure and simple case of DOJ flaunting its sacred obligation to the promotion of justice but rather with its malfeasance for more than five years breaking the law illegally trying yet more of our population and only coming clean (doubtful) now for no better reason than it was CAUGHT IN A LIE TO THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, and if the Solicitor General cannot do the time, he should not have done the crime. As they say. You decide.

Link to NY Times Article:
  
 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/us/federal-prosecutors-in-a-policy-shift-cite-warrantless-wiretaps-as-evidence.html

Copyright 2013 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim as to NY Times content)