U.K.’s Data Spying After Snowden Violated Privacy Rights
- European Court of Human Rights rules in interception suit
- Decision vindicates Snowden’s whistleblowing: campaign group
Photographer: Armando Franca/AP Photo
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The U.K.’s bulk interception of its own citizens’ communications in the wake of revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden violated their privacy laws, Europe’s human-rights tribunal ruled.
The U.K. government’s program “had been authorized by the Secretary of State, and not by a body independent of the executive,” that lacked the “end-to-end safeguards,” to narrow the scope of the data being intercepted, the European Court of Human Rights said in a decision published Tuesday.