Re: btrower The gloves are off
@Matt Bryant:
At its heart, the right to privacy is another aspect of the right to security of the person.
Our society and government are contingent upon covenants that we make among one another. Our current emerging police state is able, for now, to breach the covenant by the illegitimate use of force. However, that breach renders the covenant void and to the extent that the people operating the mechanism of state continue to act that way they act outside the law and should be ultimately be stopped and held accountable.
I did not miss the bit where an ill advised decision was made to pretend that such and such a breach was lawful. It remains unlawful in any meaningful sense. Yes, the UK in particular has absolutely horrendous legislation in place and a thoroughly corrupt administration. However, they may insist to a man that it is legitimate to execute innocents or do any other noxious and patently immoral, fundamentally wrong and ultimately illegal thing. That does not render it legitimate or legal. Some things are fundamentally beyond reason. No court decision can give them legitimacy.
The current U.K. law essentially reads in essence that the people are free from interference from the state except in the event the state deems interference desirable. It is just bad law and good men have no obligation to uphold such a law and a moral imperative to oppose such a thing.
Courts sometimes make mistakes; even very grave ones. A mistake by a court is still a mistake -- more tragic than normal, perhaps and harder to fix, but still a mistake.
This is *our* government and *our* society and there is not a whisper of a doubt that to the extent that we can make covenants with respect to *mandatory* rights the majority of informed observers insist that detailed unwarranted blanket surveillance is simply contrary to the deal we made.
Law enforcement and the legal system as it currently exists is becoming increasingly less of a solution and more of a problem. They have badly lost their way.
For law to have any legitimacy or meaning it has to fundamentally reflect the covenant we have mutually agreed to as a body politic. Constant surveillance of ourselves and our loved ones in our private lives, our correspondence and our relationships is not something we could have sensibly agreed to. I do not personally know anybody conversant with the issues who thinks for a minute we should be under constant intimate scrutiny by the state or anything else.
Below are some references to things that either form or inform the law in various jurisdictions. All the states involved here are signatories to the U.N. document and blanket surveillance is contrary to that agreement by any reasonable reading.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html
8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.
In Lawson Hunter et al. v. Southam Inc., the Supreme Court stated that a major purpose of the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure under section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was the protection of the privacy of the individual.
The case involved a constitutional challenge to a search conducted under the Combines Investigation Act. The Court concluded that to assess the constitutionality of a search, it must focus on the search's reasonableness or unreasonableness in terms of its impact on the individual and not simply on its rationality in furthering a valid government objective. Mr. Justice Dickson of the Supreme Court advanced in this case for the first time the precept of reasonable expectation of privacy as a standard against which government action should be scrutinized.
The United States Constitution
Amendment 4 Search and Seizure
http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am4.html
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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The Human Rights Act 1998 (the “Act”) incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights (the “Convention”) into UK law. Article 8(1) of the Convention provides that “everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/treaties/html/005.htm
Being resolved, as the governments of European countries which are like-minded and have a common heritage of political traditions, ideals, freedom and the rule of law, to take the first steps for the collective enforcement of certain of the rights stated in the Universal Declaration,
Have agreed as follows:
Article 1 – Obligation to respect human rights
The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section I of this Convention.
Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
