EDINBURGH, December 8 (Sputnik), Mark Hirst — London is the worst place in the world when it comes to surveillance of civilians, Icelandic Member of Parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir told Sputnik on Monday.
“We are seeing militarization of the police in the US for example, less so in the UK, but there is nowhere in the world as sickening as London when it comes to the surveillance of civilians,” she said in an interview with Sputnik.
Jonsdottir’s comments came in response to the British court’s ruling on Friday, which concluded that it is legal to conduct electronic mass surveillance of people’s cellphones and on-line communications.
“This is absolutely the worst possible ruling that we could get for those of us who are concerned about human rights in the typical round. I do hope that other nations do not look at this as a free pass to carry on the decline in human rights in relation to privacy and the right to be a part of organizations, or the right to exercise democracy,” she said, adding that the basic cornerstone of being able to exercise the democracy is that personal privacy should be regarded as sacred.
Spying on civilians by intelligence services issue has drawn worldwide attention in 2013, when former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified information, revealing that the NSA was running massive surveillance programs without a warrant, sifting through databases in search of private information on US foreign citizens and even leaders of the allied countries. The leaks revealed as well that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) of the United Kingdom was exercising mass surveillance and interception of on-line and communications data alongside the NSA.
