Karlin Lillington writes:
The Cabinet’s new legislation allowing for the interception of social media communications has me marvelling that snooping WhatsApp preoccupies this Government more than changing our overall surveillance and data-retention legislation, effectively thrown out by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over two years ago.
Excuse me if I am missing some hidden hierarchy of importance on the Cabinet to-do list, but surely an ECJ decision on a case primarily based on the Irish implementation of the EU’s data- retention directive trumps amending said invalidated legislation in order to add even more surveillance powers under the same discredited oversight regime?
But maybe this is a minor quibble and I should really strive to understand the need for the Garda to have the increased powers to surveil WhatsApp, Viber and Facebook, as well as texts and emails.
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