Rights groups call for Inquiry into GCHQ
Following the revelation that the UK's intelligence agency illegally spied on the human rights organisation Amnesty, three prominent human rights groups have urged the Prime Minister David Cameron to launch an inquiry into how and why the intelligence services spied illegally on Amnesty international.
It emerged that GCHQ had illegally monitored the communications of Amnesty International after a changed judgement from the Investigatory Powers Tribunal the body that deals with complaints related to the intelligence services.
In a letter Shami Chakrabarti the director of Liberty, Kate Allen the UK director of Amnesty and Gus Hosein the executive director of Privacy international spoke of their concerns regarding the actions of the UK's intelligence agencies.
In the letter they wrote: “Ever since whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed the existence and scale of the US and UK mass surveillance programs two years ago, campaign groups across the world have been worried that we ourselves might be being spied on.” They also argue that the only reason the information came out was because GCHQ broke the rules on how long the data could be held and if this had not happened we may not have known they had been spied on.
Critics of the intelligence services have questioned the excessive power the security services have in this country. Illegally spying on human rights organisations appears to only be an abuse of power with some critics arguing that it only happens because the intelligence services are not held to account for their actions.
Amnesty Internationals Secretary General, Salil Shetty said the actions of the security apparatus, "makes it vividly clear that mass surveillance has gone too far".
"It's what they are doing normally... spying on anybody which might be interesting for them. They spy and are protected by the government," London-based human rights activist William Spring told Press TV.
He doubt about the government's willing to cope with the current situation saying the government does not seem to change the current policy and the spying agencies are just following the government's instructions.
Spring also said the government and spying agencies justify their functions as efforts to protect the security of state adding this has given them an uncontrolled power.
He concluded that with such power, they confront anybody or organizations which they deem dangerous.
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