Minijust Buggery

Apparently the media prefer Gitmo show trials and Archbishop bashing to y’know Big Brother ‘n’ shit, well the real Big Brother not the sadistic ‘reality’ teevee gameshow. Did you know Scottish lawyers treat this as routine?

LEADING Scottish criminal lawyers believe their conversations are routinely bugged by the security services and some have resorted to interviewing clients in streets and parks to avoid eavesdroppers, it emerged last night. Lawyers admit they have no hard evidence for their claims but simply assume MI5 is listening in to their conversations with terror suspects and other major criminals. Such is their level of cynicism about state surveillance, lawyers have told Scotland on Sunday there is no point complaining because the security services will simply find another way to spy on them.

This article from the Times suggests a conflict, the courts consider legally privileged discussion off limits, the government and the police think otherwise-

This weekend there were further claims that hundreds of lawyers had been bugged during visits to see their clients in British prisons. If it could be proved legally privileged conversations had been taped, then defence lawyers might move for cases to be retried.

While the extent of the surveillance might be surprising, it was not illegal. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, senior police officers can authorise such bugging without a warrant from a government minister.

It also says this-

THE public are led to believe that surveillance and bugging are strictly controlled in Britain. Warrants must be obtained, permission given by ministers and safeguards met. A number of important-sounding watchdogs, such as the surveillance commissioner, report annually that the rules are being properly met and all is well.

The truth is that the law and standards for different types of surveillance vary enormously.

To bug your home telephone or e-mail in the UK, spies need a warrant authorised by a secretary of state, usually at the Home Office. About 1,800 such warrants are issued each year.

Many other methods of spying are permitted with far lower safeguards. Your car can be bugged on the authorisation of a senior officer in the security services or the police. Covert surveillance in a public place can be conducted just on the say-so of a senior officer. Informants can also be recruited on the authorisation of a senior officer.

There is more, it finishes with a roundup of UK surveillance where it says “the many forms of surveillance that make Britain ‘similar to Russia” (trust a Murdoch rag to get in a dig at the Soviets, decades out of date though it is!). I think maybe we are more like…well it looks like we might be world leaders in this. No one is like this, the technology makes this evolving authoritarian culture unique. Is this the British net curtain twitching tendency writ large into a totalitarian surveillance state? And there’s no denying Nulabour’s clear enthusiasm for this Panopticonism. Paddles, lack thereof, canoe, shit creek. Hello! George Orwell, he was British, we should be up on this shit. And what the fuck else is going on we don’t know about? They can shove their ID card up their fucking arse, this has to be stopped. Bring it Paddy my boy-