European Court of Human Rights’ Grand Chamber to consider UK’s bulk surveillance powers for first time ‘We need to be protected from intrusive and over-powerful states that think nothing of secretly harvesting and sharing vast amounts of our private data and communications’ - Lucy Claridge The UK Government’s bulk surveillance powers will be examined by the highest chamber of the European Court of Human Rights this week, the latest stage in a long-running legal battle over the UK’s unlawful use of previously-secret surveillance powers and its sharing of massive amounts of private

The European Court of Human Rights has today ruled that UK laws enabling mass surveillance violate the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. Judges found that: The UK’s historical bulk interception regime violated the right to privacy protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and to free expression, protected by Article 10. The interception of communications data is as serious a breach of privacy as the interception of content, meaning the UK regime for bulk interception of communications data was unlawful. The UK’s regime for authorising bulk interception

The European Court of Human Rights will hear a landmark case on surveillance tomorrow (7 November) as part of a challenge to the lawfulness of the UK’s surveillance laws and its intelligence agencies’ mass surveillance practices. The case, described by campaigners as a “watershed moment for people’s privacy and freedom of expression across the world”, is being brought by Amnesty International, Liberty, Privacy International, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and ten other human rights groups - as well as two individuals - based in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. The case is the

He stood up for our rights, starting a global debate on mass surveillance that changed the world – yet whistleblower Edward Snowden faces decades in prison for it. Currently exiled in Russia, he is wanted in the US, where he could serve up to 30 years in prison for exposing human rights abuses by governments around the world.

‘It will be a deep stain on President Obama’s legacy if he leaves office with Snowden still in exile in Russia’ - Salil Shetty UK Government should ‘drop plans for new snooping laws which would extend the intrusive and unchallengeable powers of the intelligence services’ US President Barack Obama should place himself on the right side of history by pardoning the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, said Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and a host of other organisations and individuals as they launched a global petition today. Ahead of the release on

‘We’ll be arguing strongly for proper limits on the powers of the snoops and the spooks’ - Rachel Logan