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Published: January 10, 2017 | Source: crowdfundjustice.org | Author: Mark Campbell

Crowdfunding group raises £10,000 overnight to challenge the “Snoopers Charter”

Crowdfunding group raises £10,000 overnight to challenge the

Crowdfunding group raises £10,000 overnight to challenge the “Snoopers Charter”

 
 
The UK’s controversial Investigatory Powers Bill was passed in November 2017, a bill which is condemned by the privacy advocates and tech companies, described by the privacy chief of the United Nations as “worse than scary” and is seen a illegal by the European Union.  
 
Regardless of these issues the bill was still passed and is set to me made into law sometime in 2017, despite the EU’s ruling that the legislations is illegal and “not justified within a democratic society”. 
 
Amongst other things, the Investigatory Powers Bill will force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telecommunications companies to store your internet browsing history, domain visits (not specific pages) and phone numbers that you have contacted for a period of 12-months.  The bill will allow the police and intelligence agencies to carry out “targeted equipment interference”, hack, on devices that are owned privately by citizens or groups. 
 
One other controversial aspect of the bill is that it will give the security services the legal power to use bulk collection methods on personal communications data, even in foreign regions. Other aspects of the bill will force companies to decrypt data on demand and tell the government about any new security features that are coming to their products before they officially launch.

  
Over the past 24 hours, the Human rights group called Liberty has raised over £14,000 to seek a High Court Judicial review of the new law, which hopes to abolish the bill before it is made into law. 

Recently the UK’s petitions website had a petition to repeal the bill, raising over 200,000 signatures and was ignored by the government, with the petitions committee deciding not to debate the issue in Parliament. This is despite the fact that more laughable petitions like the petition to “Block Donald J Trump from UK Entry” which was debated on January 18th, 2016. 

 

Crowdfunding group raises £10,000 overnight to challenge the

 

In a press statement, Liberty’s director Martha Spurrier said the following;

 

      Last year, this Government exploited fear and distraction to quietly create the most extreme surveillance regime of any democracy in history.

We hope anybody with an interest in defending our democracy, privacy, press freedom, fair trials, protest rights, free speech and the safety and cybersecurity of everyone in the UK will support this crowdfunded challenge, and make 2017 the year we reclaim our rights.

 

Having passed through both the House of Commons and the House of Lords all that the “Snoopers Charter” requires to become law within the UK is the “Royal Assent”, which will turn the bill into an Act of Parliament. The Royal Assent is essentially the Queen’s seal of approval on the new bill, officially making the bill into a new law. 

The Royal Assent is essentially a formality, having not been withheld by a British monarch since 1707, which effectively means that the Investigatory Powers Bill should become law by the end of the year. 

 

You can read more on Liberty’s “The People vs the Snoopers’ Charter” crowdfunding campaign here.

 

You can join the discussion on Liberty using crowdfunding to challenge the “snoopers charter” on the OC3D Forums. 

 

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