On Monday, the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal stated that the South African Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights were among targets of the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters.
Following an investigation, a court ruled that GCHQ acted lawfully intercepting email communications of the EIPR, but kept the data longer than permitted due to a technical mistake.
"We believe that the whole surveillance regime needs to be brought to light since the governing procedures are secret and there are not enough protections in place against arbitrary and disproportionate use of these spying measures," Karim Ennarah told Sputnik.
"We have no idea why they [GCHQ] kept it for longer than is permissible and we believe the whole exercise is an unjustifiable violation of privacy."
"That is the only further legal step we and other complainants from other countries are taking."
The decision by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal was based on UK’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).
The RIPA was approved in 2000 and is formally aimed at countering terrorism and internet crime. The legislation came into spotlight after revelations on mass surveillance conducted by US and UK intelligence, made by former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, were made public.
In February, the office of the UK Interception of Communications Commissioner confirmed that police have been using RIPA to access journalist e-mails and phone conversation data, bypassing the courts.
