06:39 GMT +316 December 2018

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)

Amnesty Int'l Lauds ‘Historic’ UK Ruling on Rights Breaches by Spy Agencies

© Photo : British Ministry of Defence

18:02 06.02.2015(updated 18:36 06.02.2015) Get short URL

The human rights watchdog commended the Investigatory Powers Tribunal's judgment accusing the UK spy networks of sharing surveillance data collected by NSA.

A page of the British GCHQ official website, the government electronic and communications spy agency

© AP Photo /

British Intel Agency Found Guilty of Human Rights Breach by Secret Court

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Amnesty International and several other rights pressure groups announced a "historic victory" in the fight for privacy and freedom of speech against UK and US intelligence services whose mass surveillance programs were found on Friday to be in violation of basic human rights.

"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.

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)

© Photo : British Ministry of Defence

Rights Group Says UK Journalist Privacy Threatened by GCHQ

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) passed judgment accusing the UK spy networks of sharing surveillance data collected by US National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA was revealed in 2013 to be scooping up millions of telephone calls, faxes, emails, and other types of private communications from sources all over the world.

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

Related:: Watchdog Says UK Police Ignores Journalists Freedom of Speech

: US Investigative Journalists Believe They Are Monitored by Government

: Rights Group Says UK Journalist Privacy Threatened by GCHQ

: British Spies Threaten to End Cooperation With Germany Over NSA Probe

Tags:

Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), MI6, MI5, NSA, GCHQ, Amnesty International, Rachel Logan, Britain

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