Industrial espionage by TLA's

[Brian L Johnson]

On Tue, 28 Jan 2014 10:16:54 -0000, Peter Fairbrother  
<zenadsl6186 at zen.co.uk> wrote:

> I was wondering whether GCHQ did the same, and came to the conclusion  
> that they do - it is specifically allowed under RIPA.
>
> The Secretary of State (the Foreign Secretary in this case) can issue a  
> single certificated warrant to allow interception and examination of any  
> and all "external" [1] communications  "for the purpose of safeguarding  
> the economic well-being of the United Kingdom".
>
> See RIPA 8(4)(b)(ii) and 5(3)(c).
>
>
> Peter Fairbrother
>
>
> [1] "external" communications are communications where either the sender  
> or the intended recipient, or both, are outside the UK.
>
> It is uncertain whether this applies to eg an email which is sent from a  
> person in the UK to another person in the UK, but which is sent via a  
> foreign country - a not uncommon happening, eg mail to and from all  
> Google mail, Gmail and Hotmail addresses will pass through servers in  
> the US.

Tom Watson recently posted this on Twitter:

tom_watson @tom_watson 2h

"Huge swath of GCHQ surveillance is illegal, says top lawyer":  
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/gchq-mass-surveillance-spying-law-lawyer  
… I'd appreciate your help in sharing this story.

-- 
Brian