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A British tribunal has ruled that data sharing between the NSA and the UK spy group known as GCHQ was illegal for years. Why? Because it was done in secret.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal in the UK ruled today (.pdf) that British intelligence services acted unlawfully when they accessed the private communications of millions of people that had been collected by the NSA under its mass-surveillance programs known as PRISM and Upstream. The PRISM program, which began in 2007, allowed the NSA to collect data in bulk from U.S. companies like Yahoo and Google. The Upstream program involved the collection of data from taps placed on undersea cables outside the U.S.

The UKs use of the NSA data was illegal, the Tribunal found, because it violated the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires that activity that infringes on an individuals privacy be done both in accordance with the law and only when necessary and proportionate. The law requires that there be a detailed and publicly accessible legal framework in place that explains any privacy safeguards that are in place to help regulate programs that interfere with privacy. This was not the case until December 2014, after documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed the data-sharing programs and a legal challenge to the data-sharing forced the government to disclose the safeguards it was using.

The legal challenge was brought in July 2013 by Privacy International, Liberty, and other human rights and civil liberties groups. These groups argued in their complaint that by obtaining data about UK citizens from the NSA, UK spy agencies had done an end-run around privacy protections that UK citizens have under domestic laws. This forced the UK intelligence community to explain the safeguards it had put in place to govern use of the data.

We now know that, by keeping the public in the dark about their secret dealings with the NSA, GCHQ acted unlawfully and violated our rights, said James Welch, legal director for Liberty, in a statement. That their activities are now deemed lawful is thanks only to the degree of disclosure Liberty and the other claimants were able to force from our secrecy-obsessed government.

The Guardian notes that this is the first time since the Tribunal was established in 2000 that it has upheld a complaint relating to the UKs intelligence agencies.

But civil liberties groups say the Tribunal didnt go far enough. They are appealing an earlier decision by the Tribunal in December of last year, which found that now that the safeguards are public, the program is legal.

The IPT ruled that, because the government was forced to disclosed these previous secret policies during the case, that the sharing of intelligence between GCHQ and NSA is lawful post December 2014. We obviously disagree with that, Mike Rispoli, spokesman for Privacy International told WIRED.

He said the groups are also still waiting on a ruling from the Tribunal regarding the proportionality of the data collection and sharing. That ruling is expected within a few months.

The rest is here:
UK Tribunal Declares NSAs Data-Sharing with British Intel Illegal

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled today that the UK intelligence services acted unlawfully in their sharing of intelligence with the NSA prior to December 2014.

The case was brought to the Tribunal, which rules on intelligence matters, by the organisations Privacy International, Bytes for All, Liberty and Amnesty International.

The basis of the ruling is that the way in which intelligence sharing between GCHQ and the US intelligence services was kept secret prior to that date contravenes human rights. That includes the Tempora programme, by which the UK intercepts data passing through the transatlantic fibre-optic cables that carry much of the world's internet traffic, and warrantless access to data harvested by the NSA's Prism and Upstream programmes.

However, those same activities are now deemed to be legal. Following a limited disclosure by UK intelligence about its methodology with respect to information sharing with the US, on December 5th the IPT ruled that the cooperation between GCHQ and the NSA could continue.

Privacy International welcomed today's ruling, but said it does not go far enough since the activities are continuing as before.

"For far too long, intelligence agencies like GCHQ and NSA have acted like they are above the law. Today's decision confirms to the public what many have said all along - over the past decade, GCHQ and the NSA have been engaged in an illegal mass surveillance sharing program that has affected millions of people around the world," said deputy director Eric King in a statement.

"We must not allow agencies to continue justifying mass surveillance programmes using secret interpretations of secret laws. The world owes Edward Snowden a great debt for blowing the whistle, and today's decision is a vindication of his actions," he said, adding that more now needs to be done to put pressure on the authorities.

"The only reason why the NSA-GCHQ sharing relationship is still legal today is because of a last-minute clean-up effort by Government to release previously secret 'arrangements'. That is plainly not enough to fix what remains a massive loophole in the law, and we hope that the European Court decides to rule in favour of privacy rather than unchecked state power."

James Welch, legal director for Liberty, said his organisation will continue the battle through the European courts.

"We now know that, by keeping the public in the dark about their secret dealings with the National Security Agency, GCHQ acted unlawfully and violated our rights. That their activities are now deemed lawful is thanks only to the degree of disclosure Liberty and the other claimants were able to force from our secrecy-obsessed Government." Welch said.

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NSA-GCHQ data sharing was illegal - but they are free to carry on doing it

A secret UK court has ruled that the UK's intelligence agency GCHQ acted unlawfully by intercepting information gathered by the NSA. Investigatory Powers Tribunal said that because the rules surrounding the UKs access to the NSA's PRISM and UPSTREAM program data were secret, data sharing between the US and UK was illegal. A case has been brought against GCHQ by Privacy International, Bytes for All, Liberty, and Amnesty International.

But while the IPT said that accessing this information breached human rights laws this is no longer the case. Why? The illegality of sharing data collected through these surveillance programs centered on the very fact that they were secret. In blowing the whistle about what the NSA was doing, Edward Snowden unwittingly made this data sharing legal. Whoops.

The IPT's ruling states that GCHQ's access to NSA data was illegal before December 2014, but after this time the documents revealed by Snowden has brought the sharing of gathered intelligence to the public attention -- it is now legal. The activities of the NSA are now something we are all too aware of. This is largely thanks to the revelations made by Snowden which led to a massive surge in public interest about government monitoring of web usage.

Few would have suspected, however, that the documents leaked by Snowden would end up making the activities legal. The new ruling says that

...prior to the disclosures made and referred to in the Tribunal's Judgment of 5 December 2014 and this judgment the Prism and/or Upstream arrangements contravened Articles 8 or 10 ECHR, but now comply.

So when we didnt know about what was going on, it was illegal. Now that we do know about it, it's legal. The ethical and legal rights and wrongs of the surveillance have been questioned by many, and today's ruling will do little to silence those opposed to what is going on. Deputy director of Privacy International, Eric King, said:

The only reason why the NSA-GCHQ sharing relationship is still legal today is because of a last-minute clean-up effort by Government to release previously secret 'arrangements'. That is plainly not enough to fix what remains a massive loophole in the law, and we hope that the European Court decides to rule in favor of privacy rather than unchecked State power.

Privacy International and Bytes for All are now calling for the deletion of all data collected before December 2014. The two groups will also continue to fight against GCHQ access to NSA-gathered information, and the ruling is seen as being very bittersweet. James Welch, Legal Director for Liberty, said:

We now know that, by keeping the public in the dark about their secret dealings with the National Security Agency, GCHQ acted unlawfully and violated our rights. That their activities are now deemed lawful is thanks only to the degree of disclosure Liberty and the other claimants were able to force from our secrecy-obsessed Government [...] The Tribunal believes the limited safeguards revealed during last year's legal proceedings are an adequate protection of our privacy. We disagree, and will be taking our fight to the European Court of Human Rights.

The rest is here:
Thanks to Snowden, NSA-GCHQ surveillance data sharing is now legal

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Should I Join Toastmasters, National Speaker Association (NSA), etc...? Well it depends! Joining these organization will certainly help you but only you can ...

By: Victor Antonio

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Should I Join Toastmasters, National Speaker Association (NSA), etc... - Video

The NSA and its allies have raided the pockets of independent and nation-state hackers and monitored some of the security industry's foremost researchers in its bid to hoover information on targets and find better ways to break systems, Snowden documents reveal.

Spooks would monitor the work of 'freelance' and rival state hackers, notably those plundering email accounts owned by targets of interest to the NSA and friends, and pilfer the stolen contents, according to a report by The Intercept.

That stolen data, referred to as 'take', was then pinched from hacker targets such as journalists, activists and military sources including the Indian Navy. Those hacks were likely the handiwork of other nation-state hackers given the sophistication of the breaches.

The documents revealed the hackers' email-plundering infrastructure was referred to under the moniker INTOLERANT and that Canada and the UK had hands in hacker pockets.

Here's a choice bit from one of the alleged NSA documents:

The NSA would tip-off allies such as the UK and Australia when it found data in hackers' take.

Snowden's trickle-feed cache also revealed the NSA had run an open source intelligence gathering service known as Lovely Horse which monitored the Twitter feeds of security bods including Mark Dowd, Tavis Ormandy and HD Moore. The Intercept listed 36 other Twitter sources who could be flattered by the agency's interest.

The agency also scraped security blogs for data in its bid to keep abreast of emerging exploits and vulnerabilities.

It need not have go to the length to build in-house systems however. Plenty of RSS feed platforms and page-monitoring browser extensions exist, while Aussie hacker Matt Jones (@volvent) had in 2012 created the TalkBack portal to analyse Twitter chatter and pry out new vulnerability information using known good security sources.

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NSA raided hackers' troves of stolen data: report