;void(0);)
Fairly predictably, someone here in the UK establishment - specifically William Hague - finally came out from behind the parapet to assert that all intelligence gathering conducted in concert with the Americans is lawful.
Boxing not so clever (redux)
So, yes. Here we are already. As I hinted only a week ago, it looks like UK agencies are happily sourcing information from the US that UK law would not allow them to obtain directly. Whilst appearing with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Foreign Secretary William Hague has come out defending the intelligence-sharing protocols with the US as falling within what he described as a "framework of law", which to my jaded ear sounds very much like like weasel words for "conforming to the letter of the law whilst side-stepping domestic legal obstructions". I have to say characterisation falls a way short of rendering any reassurance.
As ever, the argument that "law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear" is being repeatedly trotted out in one form or another, which is fine and dandy just as long as morality and law are in agreement. But that is the potential problem, is it not? What happens if the unthinkable happens, and Democracy suffers a catastrophic stroke and ends up in permanent care, and the moral choice no longer sees eye-to-eye with the law? Then all of a sudden average good people DO have something to fear, because they and the law are no longer on speaking terms, but the state already has all the snooping powers it will ever need to keep them in line.
