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codes at Bletchley Park. 40 In contrast, the 1960s and1970s saw several scandals that shook the polishedimage of the UK spy agencies, 41 but their effect oncurrent popular perceptions is unclear.Trust in public institutions has declined in muchof Europe, 42 and the UK seems to follow a similarpattern to other countries. In most European countries,citizens trust the police more than politiciansand other public bodies. 43 It is possible that thistrust somehow extends to spy agencies.Terrorist threatThe UK is a clear target of terrorist groups due toits close alignment with the US and military involvementin Iraq and Afghanistan. Citizens are acutelyaware of the threat, with constant reminders in publicspaces. This has a likely influence on perceptionsof the balance of risk.Action stepsDon’t Spy on UsUK civil society groups have been running a jointadvocacy campaign – DontSpyonUS.org.uk – demandingfundamental reforms of surveillancelegislation and practices:Don’t Spy On Us is calling for a new ParliamentaryBill to make the spooks accountable to ourelected representatives, to put an end to masssurveillance and let judges, not the Home Secretary,decide when spying is justified. 44The campaign is asking for international supportersto sign up and endorse its proposals.Legal challengesThere are several legal challenges being broughtforward by UK civil society groups. Open RightsGroup, Big Brother Watch and English PEN, togetherwith German activist Constanze Kurtz, have takenthe UK government to the European Court of HumanRights. They managed to crowd-fund over £20,000for legal fees 45 in just 48 hours.40 www.bletchleypark.org.uk41 www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/aldrich/vigilant/lectures/gchq/42 Park, A., Bryson, C., Clery, E., Curtice, J., & Phillips, M. (Eds.)(2013). British Social Attitudes: The 30th Report. London: NationalCentre for Social Research bsa-30.natcen.ac.uk/read-the-report/key-findings/trust,-politics-and-institutions.aspx43 Committee on Standards in Public Life. (2014). Public Perceptionsof Standards in Public Life in the UK and Europe. www.publicstandards.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2901994_CSPL_PublicPerceptions_acc-WEB.pdf44 https://www.dontspyonus.org.uk/pi45 https://www.privacynotprism.org.ukOther organisations – including Liberty (theNational Council for Civil Liberties) and PrivacyInternational – have placed a complaint at the InvestigatoryPowers Tribunal. The first hearings haveled to unprecedented disclosures, as the securityservices have been forced to defend the legality oftheir practices 46 – but in all likelihood the case willend up in a European court.Most major reforms of the British security servicesover the past 30 years have been driven byEuropean legislation and court rulings. For example,the RIPA law mentioned above was created inorder to comply with the European Convention onHuman Rights, as it became UK law. So it would beimportant for more civil society organisations andconcerned individuals to challenge the activities ofthe UK at European courts.Advocacy for reformThe Don’t Spy on Us Campaign has a set of principlesfor reform, based on the 13 International Principleson the Application of Human Rights to CommunicationsSurveillance. 47 They are trying to get all majorpolitical parties to support a wholesale review ofsurveillance. But while all the three main parties areproposing some form of review or enquiry, these fallshort of the demands of civil society.International agreementsEven if UK campaigners won each of their demands,reforms at the national level would not be enough.The UK and the US have built a very complex surveillancemachine that involves many other countries,and reforms will need to take place elsewhere to beeffective. Third party allies such as Sweden, Franceand Germany will need to put their own house in orderas well.There is a need for some form of internationalagreement, as no state will unilaterally reduce itssurveillance capability. Mass digital surveillanceand the corresponding militarisation of cyberspaceare complex problems, much like nuclear weaponsor climate change. These involve systemic changesbeyond tinkering with oversight mechanisms.Technical and business measuresStopping mass surveillance requires more than legaland political changes. As long as the businessmodels of internet companies are based on surveillance,governments will find a way to tap into thesedata pools. There is a need for new models that46 https://www.privacyinternational.org/what-to-know-gchq-on-trial47 https://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/textminimise corporate surveillance for commercialpurposes.Mass surveillance systems are a very good exampleof Larry Lessig’s maxim, “Code is law.” 48 Anyproposals for change must also involve technology.For example, there are several campaigns to promotewidespread encryption, 49 and the technicalcommunity that keeps the internet running havestarted to consider a fundamental architectural redesignto make the job of the spooks harder. 50The securocrats strike backThe Snowden leaks were not a complete surpriseto British human rights campaigners, who had longcomplained about legal loopholes creating the potentialfor excessive surveillance. The leaks arrivedjust as these groups were winning a temporary reprieveagainst legislative proposals to strengthenthe UK’s surveillance capability. The draft CommunicationsData Bill (CDB) 51 – dubbed the Snoopers’Charter – had proposed to give the security servicesautomated direct access to the inner systems ofcommunications providers and internet companiesthrough a form of search engine.The draft bill was blocked by the minoritypartners of the coalition government – the LiberalDemocrats – due to concerns over the human rightsimplications of such an intrusive system. With hindsight,the CDB appears eerily similar to some of thesystems described in the leaks, such as PRISM andXKEYSCORE. Although the law was put in the freezer,several hundred million pounds have alreadybeen spent on these systems. It is not known whatlevel of implementation and oversight is in place.Any hopes that the current UK government wouldvoluntarily commit to fundamental reforms on mass48 Lessig, L. (2000). Code Is Law. Harvard Magazine, January-February. harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html49 https://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/text50 https://www.w3.org/2014/strint51 https://www.openrightsgroup.org/issues/Snoopers’%20Chartersurveillance were dashed with the introduction ofthe Data Retention and Investigatory Powers (DRIP)Bill 52 in July 2014. This emergency legislation wasostensibly introduced to deal with the fallout of theruling of the Court of Justice of the European Unionin April 2014 that declared the EU Data RetentionDirective invalid. 53 The directive forced communicationsproviders to keep logs of all calls, websites,emails, etc. from all customers, in case the securityservices needed them. This was found to be toobroad and disproportionate to be compatible withhuman rights law.The new bill is meant to be just a replacementof the Data Retention Directive, but it adds a uniqueextraterritorial expansion 54 of British surveillancepowers to cover any form of internet provider anywherein the world.Instead of carefully considering the contentof the ruling and its implications for all forms ofindiscriminate blanket data collection, the UKgovernment has rammed through parliamentgroundbreaking surveillance legislation withoutany proper debate. This has been achieved in a dealamong the three main parties, which have all supportedthe core aspects of the bill. In exchange thegovernment has now committed to review surveillancelaws by the next election, in May 2015, and tointroduce a US-inspired privacy board.The DRIP Bill has already been threatened withlegal challenges by human rights groups. Two parliamentarianshave asked for a judicial review onthe grounds that it breaches human rights, withthe support of Liberty. 55 Open Rights Group alsohas plans to take the Home Office to court over theDRIP Bill. 56.52 services.parliament.uk/bills/2014-15/dataretentionandinvestigatorypowers.html53 European Data Protection Supervisor. (2014, April 8). Pressstatement: The CJEU rules that Data Retention Directive is invalid.https://secure.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/EDPS/PressNews/Press/2014/14-04-08_Press_statement_DRD_EN.pdf54 Open letter from UK Internet Law Academic Experts to All Membersof Parliament, 15 July 2014. www.slideshare.net/EXCCELessex/open-letter-uk-legal-academics-drip55 https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news/press-releases/liberty-represents-mps-david-davis-and-tom-watson-legal-challenge-government%E2%80%99s-56 Killock, Jim. (2014, July 18). Dear Theresa, see you in court. OpenRights Group. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2014/deartheresa-see-you-in-court260 / Global Information Society Watch united kingdom / 261