British Government Doesn't Need a Warrant to Spy on British Citizens

[BlkHawk]

From the BBC:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27887639

In brief if a British citizen uses a foreign based email server, search engine, or social network, the government can collect those communications without a warrant. So Gmail, Facebook, Outlook.com, Freeones and thousands of other sites can be freely searched by the British authorities if the are investigating wrong doing by their citizens.

The way I read it is any electronic communication that leaves the UK, and goes to a foreign nation can be intercepted without a warrant. The way the Internet works that would be damn near everything.

Anyone living in the UK can you elaborate on this? This is apparently under the GCHQ do they just monitor foreign cyber threats, or do they also monitor domestic? Would the local police have access to this as well, or just GCHQ?

Appreciate any additional info, as I view this as a threat to civil liberties.

 

[Red XXX]

Once .... many, many years ago ......... we were innocent until proven guilty ......... :angels:

 

[Rock Clancy]

The laws regarding the collection of communications data in the UK are incredibly complex. I believe (I could be wrong) that they can gather the intelligence but would require a warrant to actually read the data contained in any specific email or text message. However I don't think they need to obtain a warrant to access the metadata, the basics of when a message was sent, who sent it and where/who to.

GCHQ monitor both foreign and domestic "threats" and our allies as well and share this information with various UK agencies. However with the exception of passing information regarding specific investigations the UK Police would probably require a warrant to request data from them.

 

[Rattrap]

I can't say anything to this specifically, but as far as I know, many of the countries in Europe have intelligence trading schemes which effectively amount to the countries spying on another's citizens for that country in question - i.e., it may be illegal for the German government to spy on Germans or the British to spy on Brits, so the Germans spy on the Brits and vice versa and they simply swap the information.

Privacy from governments is pretty much a farce at this point.