Terrorists Convicted With Help of NSA E-mail Intercepts 153
A Schneier blog post notes that three would-be bombers were recently convicted in the UK thanks in large part to e-mail communication that was intercepted by the US National Security Agency. This was the second time the men had faced criminal charges; in the first trial, the prosecution was unable to make part of their case because they didn't yet have the e-mail evidence. "Although British prosecutors were eager to use the e-mails in their second trial against the three plotters, British courts prohibit the use of evidence obtained through interception. So last January, a US court issued warrants directly to Yahoo to hand over the same correspondence." The BBC posted a number of e-mails used as evidence in the trial. The communication is coded, and some of it looks like what you might find in your spam folder, but the article also provides the prosecution's explanation of what they mean.
Re:Withheld (Score:2, Informative)
Um... not to be a vocabulary nazi or anything, but I think you may have meant prosecution...
Re:Law? (Score:3, Informative)
You added the smoking in public, without that it would all be fruit of the poison tree.
You're misunderstanding the scenario I present. The smoking in public arrest has to be separate from the finding pot in the house happening. That is, in this case, the british police had these suspects under surveillance and were gathering their own intelligence that had nothing to do with the e-mail intercepts from the US intelligence. The british were briefing the US on what was going on (which they now sort of regret) but the arrests had sufficient cause based upon the surveillance and informant information, not the e-mail which it is not clear the british had access to during the investigation.
Re:Legal Methods Work (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Law? (Score:1, Informative)
"Currently, use of intercept evidence is only allowed if it is necessary to obtain information which could not be acquired in another way, and any interception must be proportionate to what it seeks to achieve. Where it is used, appropriate protections are in place - such as closed proceedings - to safeguard national security."
"The interception of communications commissioner, a senior judge, oversees decisions on the use such evidence. An investigatory powers tribunal considers complaints from the public, and has powers to order "appropriate remedies"
In this case the US security services went to a US court to get Yahoo to give copies of the email. They did this and the emails were passed to the UK security services as evidence. In this instance the UK court/security services I assume saw this evidence as something which would not expose any sources/methods.
The key here again is using 'terrorism' to change our law and they way in which we conduct justice in this country.
People are trying to erode our justice system and the current lot are running out of time
This should not raise a debate about whether intercept evidence is admissible because it already is. This whole 'debate' is aimed to encourage the use of interception and to make it easier to convict people.
Convicting people shouldn't be easy. Sorry it shouldn't - you need evidence. Hard evidence. Intercept evidence is usually only hearsay evidence [even if it is me saying I did something] - this may help a conviction along with other 'real' evidence which has already been made admissible and proven in court. On its own it is worthless. With enough 'real' evidence I cannot see how intercept evidence needs to be used.
We are now thinking about locking up a 16 and 18 year for plotting to create a massacre at their school [though crime]. Oh they even had files on guns and bombs. This is like locking me up when I was younger for having a copy of they Jolly Roger cookbook and saying I hate school. The least we should be doing is probably trying to help this kids...
Re:Law? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Law? (Score:4, Informative)
So you're saying that the illegal, unconstitutional, interception of our communication systems had nothing to do with this successful derailing of a terrorist attack.
That does seem to be the case. In fact, if anything the US intelligence community jeopardized the case as reported earlier this week. The brits briefed the US president and company on the issue and asked the US to hold off any action until they had the evidence to convict. Instead, it appears Cheney immediately dispatched an agent, without notifying the british, and that agent had Pakistani officials arrest the primary terrorist contact tipping off all the potential terrorists in the UK. As a result the UK had to round up everyone prematurely and without sufficient time to plan and could not wait for them to buy the plane tickets which would have been important evidence.
At least that is what the british police specialist in charge of the investigation told the Times. It basically destroyed all US credibility with the british police for some time and made them a lot less willing to share information with the US, lest the US muck up their operations without warning while lying about it.
Oh yeah, that makes the title wrong also.
Well sort of. The e-mail did help in the conviction, not derailing the attack, which is what the title says. Except, of course, that the e-mail actually was subpoenaed from Yahoo who had the records instead of using the NSA ones.
Re:So, the way I read this is ... (Score:2, Informative)
I suspect that they had adequate probable cause in that these guys had already been convicted last year of conspiracy to murder [telegraph.co.uk]. If you ask me, this trial was a huge waste of public money to prove that these people really were terrorists (well, duh... conspiracy to murder isn't terrorism? WTF?).
What's worse, it seems to have been only thinly reported that another 3 people they were trying to convict (who were acquitted on a hung jury last year) were actually acquitted again. This should be seen as a scandalous waste of resources which could have been spent bringing other cases to trial earlier in my opinion.
Not indefinite detention (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, no. The penalty is up to 2 years' imprisonment or 5 years if the original charge (for which the police demanded the key in the first place) is terrorism-related.
So basically, if the case hinges on the evidence hidden behind the encryption, then withholding the key is almost certainly going to be preferable.
Re:OMFG !! You ARE NEXT !! (Score:3, Informative)
You seek the UK-USA Security Agreement.
Exactly as you say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK-USA_Security_Agreement
Re:Wonderful! (Score:3, Informative)
Well, there is the ancient common-law doctrine of autrefois acquit (which served as the basis for the US constitutional prohibition on double jeopardy), but it seems to have been recently weakened substantially in the UK.
Re:OMFG !! You ARE NEXT !! (Score:5, Informative)
That's the rumour. According to the tinfoil hat brigade
Rumour? Wha? The frickin' EU investigated this "rumour" [europa.eu]. Hell, right in Motion for a Resolution they flat out state:
Followed by:
And then:
ECHELON exists. How capable it is... well, you can read the report yourself. And it's primarily focused on satellite communication interception. But it definitely exists.