UK Government Faces Lawsuit Over Surveillance Exports 28
judgecorp writes "The UK government has been threatened with legal action, over its failure to block exports of espionage technology to oppressive regimes. British firms have sold covert surveillance equipment to the former Egyptian regime, as well as to Iran and Syria in recent months, and pressure group Privacy International has sent a letter asking for a change of policy and an update of export restrictions — backed by a threat that it will take the government to court if there is no response."
Re:Cry havoc and let slip the strongly worded lett (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh don't worry. They go after file sharers more harshly than they do after someone murdering a few thousand people. Carry on.
Re:take the government to court (Score:4, Interesting)
Put simply, the UK Government doesn't have sovereign immunity because it isn't actually sovereign. Under the UK constitution, it is Parliament that is sovereign (and so no act of Parliament can be questioned in another court - in theory), the government is bound by all sorts of things, usually via a judicial review [wikipedia.org] or under Human Rights/EU law issues. If the Government breaks the law, it can sometimes be done for it.
Actually, the monarch also has various immunities - I guess there are advantages to having a non-political/hereditary head of state; you're less likely to want to bring a case against them for screwing up stuff...