Tribunal hearing legal challenge over GCHQ surveillance claims

BBC Online :
A tribunal is hearing a legal challenge by civil liberty groups against the alleged use of mass surveillance programmes by UK intelligence services.
Privacy International and Liberty are among those challenging the legality of alleged “interception, collection and use of communications” by agencies. It follows revelations by the former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden about UK and US surveillance practices. The UK government says interception is subject to strict controls.
The case – also brought by Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups – centres on the alleged use by UK intelligence and security agencies of a mass surveillance operation called Tempora.
The UK government has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the operation.
But documents leaked by whistleblower Snowden and published in the Guardian newspaper claimed the existence of Tempora, which the paper said allowed access to the recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages and entries on Facebook.
This is one of a number of challenges brought by privacy and civil liberties groups in the wake of the Edward Snowden allegations. At issue is the lawfulness of aspects of the work of GCHQ.
GCHQ has always maintained its work is lawful but critics have raised questions about how the legal framework applies to specific areas such as intelligence sharing with the US and the division between domestic and international communications.
The tribunal – made up of judges – is the only place where people can go with complaints about the work of intelligence agencies – but this will be an unusually high profile hearing.