According to a new report released from Britain's independent surveillance watchdog, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, British spies did not break human rights laws when they conducted mass spying on its citizens.
The spying program, codenamed Tempora and revealed by U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, is said to have involved placing "intercept probes" on the transatlantic fiber optic cables that pass through Britain, reported Wired.
"We have ruled that the current regime, both in relation to Prism and Upstream (another NSA program) when conducted in accordance with the requirements which we have considered, is lawful and human rights-compliant," the tribunal said in its ruling.
The overview came largely due to public outrage over the spying allegations coupled with calls from a number of civil rights groups and privacy advocates, including Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued that the spying tactics disclosed by Snowden violated the UK's Human Rights Act, according to Reuters.
"The 'Snowden revelations' in particular have led to the impression voiced in some quarters that the law in some way permits the Intelligence Services carte blanche to do what they will. We are satisfied that this is not the case," the tribunal said.
Amnesty International's UK legal advisor Rachel Logan responded to the report claiming that the British government was able to "bluff their way out of this, retreating into closed hearings, and constantly playing the 'national security' card."
"We have had to painstakingly drag out every detail we could from an aggressively resistant government. The IPT's decisions - uniquely - cannot be appealed within the UK and this is a disappointing, if unsurprising, verdict from an overseer that was in part assessing itself," Logan added.
"The government's entire defence has amounted to 'trust us' and now the tribunal has said the same."
