Warning from Electronic Frontier Foundation: the formation of a global surveillance police state. [View all]

[ancianita]

Soon, U.K. police will be able to target people for investigation, and gather their data from U.S. companies, without a judge’s approval—and without ever providing notice to the targets.

The data collected by U.K. police will include the private information of Americans and non-Americans alike. While U.S. persons aren’t supposed to be targeted, this deal won’t stop American communications with a targeted person from being swept up while foreign police investigate.

This deal even allows, for the first time, a foreign government to perform a wiretap on a conversation involving a U.S. citizen or resident. These wiretaps won’t have the normal safeguards that a U.S. person would get if they were subject to a wiretap authorized by a U.S. court.

The deal also allows police in the U.S. to bypass U.K. sovereignty. U.S. law enforcement will be able to search and seize data on territory located in Britain and Northern Ireland, without following privacy rules in the U.K.

The US-UK agreement is the first negotiated under the Cloud Act—a federal law that allows foreign police to negotiate agreements to demand data stored in the United States and about U.S. persons. This troublesome U.S.-U.K. agreement will set a terrible precedent for similarly bad Cloud Act deals that could be struck with other nations.

The DOJ should work on speeding up existing methods of getting data across borders while maintaining judicial oversight. The U.S.-U.K. Cloud Act agreement is a bad deal for citizens of both countries, and Congress should stop it.

https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-oppose-the-u-s-u-k-cloud-act-deal?fbclid=IwAR2EBTYfKpFaGVy8Q4X-juxLYi7OLvSs2yK_AelgmlJyOUhAi2_Zh28bA2U

Other digital rights organizations support EFF's warning.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=cloud+act

It's no secret many in the UK government want backdoored encryption. The UK wing of the Five Eyes surveillance conglomerate says the only thing that should be "absolute" is the government's access to communications.

The long-gestating "Snooper's Charter" frequently contained language mandating "lawful access," the government's preferred nomenclature for encryption backdoors. And officials have, at various times, made unsupported statements about how no one really needs encryption, so maybe companies should just stop offering it.

What the UK government has in the works now won't mandate backdoors, but it appears to be a way to get its foot in the (back)door with the assistance of the US government.

Congress, on behalf of The People's privacy and security, needs to stop this weaponization of surveillance upon Five Eyes populations. It's nothing but another bad faith pacification tool used against Western countries by leaders who want to preserve their power and control.

As I've said elsewhere, the alt-right moves to use any tools it can misuse to chill communications and even "thinking out loud" among Americans.

Tyranny maintains itself by controlling speech and thought -- excluding evidence, witnesses, CNN from a WH luncheon of TV networks, "criminally investigating" a political writer.

Rule #1 from Lessons On Tyranny: Do not obey in advance.

Please. Call at least one member of the House -- https://www.house.gov/representatives -- preferably a member of the House Intel Committee. Office: [phone]