Mass internet spying was unlawful

An intelligence sharing regime between UK and US security services was unlawful, a surveillance watchdog has ruled.

Judges on the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which deals with complaints against GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, found intercepted communications were provided to Britain's listening post GCHQ under a programme that up until December breached human rights laws.

However, during the legal proceedings leading up to the judgment, the Government revealed previously-secret details of the legal framework that governs the bulk interception and intelligence sharing regime - and by doing so made it compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The complicated ruling in essence means that prior to December the programme was unlawful because the public were unaware of the safeguards in place - but since they were revealed by the hearings the human rights violation has been addressed.

Human rights groups Liberty, Privacy International and Amnesty, brought a legal challenge against GCHQ following disclosures made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden about mass surveillance programmes known as Prism and Upstream.

Today's ruling has been broadly welcomed by the groups, however, they disagree that the safeguards revealed in the course of the proceedings are sufficient to make GCHQ's intelligence-sharing activities lawful and will challenge the decision at the European Court of Human Rights.

It is the first time the tribunal has found against the intelligence agencies in its 15-year history.

GCHQ said the the judges had shown that the legal frameworks governing both the bulk interception and intelligence-sharing regime were compatible with human rights and the ruling against them was in "one small respect in relation to the historic intelligence-sharing regime".

A GCHQ spokesman said: "We are pleased that the court has once again ruled that the UK's bulk interception regime is fully lawful. It follows the court's clear rejection of accusations of 'mass surveillance' in their December judgment.

"The IPT has, however, found against the Government in one small respect in relation to the historic intelligence-sharing legal regime.

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Mass internet spying was unlawful