"This is an historic victory in the age-old battle for the right to privacy and free expression," Amnesty International UK's legal program director, Rachel Logan, said as quoted in a statement published on the watchdog's website.
#GCHQ’s receipt of private communications intercepted by the NSA through its mass surveillance programmes Prism&Upstream was illegal #IPTL
— Rachel Logan (@rachelrlogan) 6 февраля 2015
This came after UK's top intelligence court upheld on Friday a complaint by Amnesty, Liberty, Privacy International, the American Civil Liberties Union and several others against Britain's spy agencies GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.
The Tribunal's ruling was the first to implicate UK secret services since its establishment 15 years ago.
The IPT added that UK spy agencies are now compliant with the European Convention for Human Rights. Amnesty said it "strongly disagrees" with this second part of the ruling, and will bring further challenges against global unwarranted citizen surveillance at the European Court of Human Rights.
Illegal snooping by GCHQ. It's not the longest judgement in the world. But it couldn't be clearer pic.twitter.com/oIq5k2a8C5
— alan rusbridger (@arusbridger) 6 февраля 2015
