http://www.independent.ie/national-news/britain-rebuked-for-spying-on-us-for-seven-years-1425242.html


Perhaps Bush/Cheney got the FISA skirting idea from Tony Blair. The Brits were doing this long before 9/11. Are we sure that the US Government wasn't also doing the same thing?

Excerpted from the article. Use link to read the entire report.

Britain rebuked for spying on us for seven years

By Dearbhail McDonald Legal Editor

Wednesday July 02 2008

THE
British government illegally and secretly monitored every telephone,
fax and email to and from the UK and Ireland for seven years.

Laws surrounding mass covert surveillance, which the British government
insisted were necessary to combat a growing threat from terrorism, were
yesterday found to have violated privacy laws.

In a landmark ruling which could have significant implications for a similar
case under way in the Irish High Court, the European Court of Human Rights
ruled that the British government's scheme of external surveillance was not "in
accordance with the law".

It did not provide adequate protection against abuse of power and conferred
wide discretion to intercept and examine external communications.

The case was taken to the Strasbourg court by the Irish Council for Civil
Liberties and two UK-based human rights agencies, Liberty and British-Irish
Rights Watch, who claimed their privacy was breached by the alleged data "fishing
expeditions".