Security News > 2021 > January > Thou shalt not hack indiscriminately, High Court of England tells Britain's spy agencies
A landmark High Court ruling has struck down Britain's ability to hack millions of people at a time through so-called "General warrants" in what privacy campaigners are hailing as a major victory.
Speaking on Friday afternoon when the judicial review judgment was handed down, Caroline Wilson Palow, PI's legal director, said in a statement: "General warrants are no more permissible today than they were in the 18th century. The government had been getting away with using them for too long. We welcome the High Court's affirmation of these fundamental constitutional principles."
Spy agency court the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which, true to its principles, previously ruled there was nothing wrong with the idea of one single warrant authorising mass surveillance by MI5, MI6, and GCHQ. Summing up the case, Lord Justice Bean and Mrs Justice Farbey said in their judgment: "The question posed in the Statement of Facts and Grounds is: 'Does section 5 of permit the issue of a 'thematic' computer hacking warrant authorising acts in respect of an entire class of people or an entire class of such acts?'".
Barrister Ben Jaffey QC, for PI, told the High Court that in its previous ruling OK'ing this kind of thing, the IPT had made a crucial legal mistake: instead of focusing on whether a warrant was lawful if it "Adequately described" what items the spy agencies wanted to hack, the law said these things had to be "Specified".
The difference is that when the items to be hacked are "Specified" in a warrant that means drawing up a list, not giving carte blanche permission for hacking anything and everything.
The judgment is a vindication of PI not only on the bulk hacking warrants but also on a previous case involving the IPT. That case, also a judicial review, overturned anti-scrutiny laws that made the IPT a one-stop shop whose rulings could never be challenged by higher courts.