Claire Short

[leftism]

Originally posted by agrajag
I have to question the International Laws, or indeed conventions you have quoted. Are you certain that it was actually premises of the United Nations which were bugged ? As I understand it we are talking about interception of communications. This would not normally have been achieved by any interference with premises. Unless of course you have more information on the actual process which was carried out. If so I would love to hear it, or a source.

afaik there is no specific information about how the information was intercepted. Most analysts suggest it was "hoovered" up from radio waves and other transmissions via a listening station.

As I understand it this doesnt make a difference though. The "assets of the United Nations" include their communication channels. Mobile phones, landlines etc and as such should be "immune from... any form of interference"

With regards to the rest of your post I wont do the usual quote,answer quote answer routine but I'll try and cover the issues you raised and explain my position.

I dont think anyone here, myself included, is qualified to talk about the nitty gritty details of International Law, so.. I'm basing my opinions on high ranking UN officials who have categorically stated that intercepting their communications, regardless of the method used, is illegal. They have quoted 3 conventions/agreements, 2 of which I've mentioned here. A quick google will provide you with the details.

I, along with most people, would be completely astounded to find out that intercepting UN communications is legal. Although I'm sure some lawyers could play their usual word games and argue that the communications werent " interfered with" but merely "interecepted"

So the UN says its illegal and I dont see any reason to doubt this.

I have no idea who would/could be prosecuted but I imagine the person who gave the order would be top of the list. According to Katharine Gun this could include NSA officials and/or whoever gave them orders to ask the UK Gvt to help them intercept Annans communications.

Of course, it will never happen but I think its a good thing that the public knows that our leaders are prepared to break International Law whilst demanding that others obey it. People need a bit of irony in their lives every now and again

[Agrajag]

Once again you speak of people breaking International Laws, without actually being able to say which particular laws were broken.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but to accuse people of commiting an offence when you can't specify the offence is actually very unfair. No-one was ever convicted for "crime, unspecified".

Neither can anyone answer your post when it is this nebulous. Again please don't take this the wrong way, but there are a lot of words with little subsatnce.

[leftism]

Originally posted by agrajag
Once again you speak of people breaking International Laws, without actually being able to say which particular laws were broken.

I showed you the 2 conventions that the UN said were broken. I showed you the specific articles they stated were broken. What more do you want?

I can only hope this helps...

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations said Thursday that alleged British spying on Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office, if true, was illegal and must be stopped.
It was the world body's first official reaction to the charge by a former member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet that Britain spied on Annan in the run-up to last year's Iraq war when Washington and London tried unsuccessfully to get U.N. authorization to attack Saddam Hussein.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the United Nations "would be disappointed" if the allegation by Clare Short were true.

"Such activities would undermine the integrity and confidential nature of diplomatic exchanges," he said. "Those who speak to the secretary-general are entitled to assume that their exchanges are confidential."

Short, who resigned as Britain's international development secretary shortly after last year's campaign to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, said in a BBC interview that she had seen evidence of eavesdropping and had read transcripts of Annan's conversations.

Blair refused to say whether the allegation was true, but called Short "deeply irresponsible."

Eckhard said Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry, who is in London, called Annan on behalf of Blair, but the U.N. spokesman provided no details about their conversation.

'Stop It'

The United Nations is "not in a position to determine whether this is true or not," Eckhard said. "We are throwing down a red flag and saying if this is true ... stop it."

"The secretariat routinely takes technical measures to guard against such invasions of privacy, and those efforts will now be intensified," Eckhard said.

"We can take certain steps within our power to protect the confidentiality of phone conversations. We can use secure phones, secure faxes ... We routinely check the secretary-general's office and other parts of the U.N. premises for any bugging devices. I don't know that anyone has protection against satellite intercepts," he said.

Asked whether bugging the secretary-general's office was illegal, Eckhard said, "It is indeed considered illegal."

He said there were three relevant international laws, the most important being the 1946 Convention on The Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, which Britain signed the year it was adopted.

It says U.N. premises "shall be inviolable" and "immune from search ... and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action."

The two other laws are the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1947 agreement between the United Nations and the United States regarding the U.N. headquarters in New York. It contains a provision concerning the inviolability of United Nations premises which is an obligation of the host country.

Eckhard was asked whether Annan planned to speak to the United States about the alleged eavesdropping, because London and Washington worked so closely during the run-up to the war.

"This incident seems only to involve the United Kingdom," Eckhard said. "I don't think the secretary-general intends to speak to anyone else."

The U.N. spokesman stressed that it is the obligation of U.N. member states "to honor their commitments" under international law.

source

[Agrajag]

Leftism,

Sorry, I haven't explained myself properly which is my fault. What is the offence you are accusing people of. Within Acts, Conventions etc there is a section, normally called something like "Offences" which actually details the crimes which people may be accused of and the penalties for those offences.

If such a thing does not exist within that Act then that law does not have any offences which people can commit. I only ask that you specify the offences so that we can have a reasonable debate on the subject. Your breaking International Laws contention doesn't really work. It needs to be more specific.

[leftism]

Originally posted by agrajag
Sorry, I haven't explained myself properly which is my fault. What is the offence you are accusing people of. Within Acts, Conventions etc there is a section, normally called something like "Offences" which actually details the crimes which people may be accused of and the penalties for those offences.

If such a thing does not exist within that Act then that law does not have any offences which people can commit. I only ask that you specify the offences so that we can have a reasonable debate on the subject. Your breaking International Laws contention doesn't really work. It needs to be more specific.

Wow, I didnt realise that was the case.

I suggest you telephone the UN and inform them that you, clearly an expert on International Law, have found out that none of their conventions are worth the paper they're written on because there is not a specific section entitled "offences".

Ill try and find Fred Eckhard's number for you. Then you can talk to him directly and tell him why his claims, i.e. that the interception of Kofi Annans communications is illegal, are wrong.



If your going to troll successfully, you have to be waaay more subtle than this agrajag/j2k4

You need to have an element of authenticity. i.e you need to make me believe that you believe what your saying.

Good effort, I found it amusing, but.. better luck next time

[Agrajag]

If you are incapable of simply saying "I don't know" that is fine, if a bit childish. It really would be more honest than making grand pronouncements, which you cannot back up when asked. You have yet to substantiate the claim that members of our Government broke some International Law, indeed you cannot even identify the people or the offence. To defend this by sarcastically attacking me is just pathetic. I had assumed this place to be more than the serious lounge, perhaps I was mistaken.

[lynx]

Originally posted by Agrajag@29 February 2004 - 10:00
If you are incapable of simply saying "I don't know" that is fine, if a bit childish. It really would be more honest than making grand pronouncements, which you cannot back up when asked. You have yet to substantiate the claim that members of our Government broke some International Law, indeed you cannot even identify the people or the offence. To defend this by sarcastically attacking me is just pathetic. I had assumed this place to be more than the serious lounge, perhaps I was mistaken.

Quite clearly, the UN considers that if the allegations are true then international law has been broken. They are the experts on international law. Do we have to be experts too in order to quote the statements from the UN? I think not.

As to who is responsible for these breaches, I would think that we on this forum are not sufficiently well briefed to be able to say who in government has responsibility for which action, but I am quite certain that those at the top of government know. I suspect Claire Short also knows, but she has refrained from pointing fingers at any individual.

So when you keep asking "which law" and "who did it", your arguments are more than a little specious.

To step backwards a little, we should examine why the case against Ms Gun was dropped. It can hardly have been for lack of evidence since she admitted her revelations. It seems there are two possibilities left. Either she had revealed something which was going to be very embarrassing to the government, and it was therefore "not in the public interest" to proceed. Or what she had revealed was not true, in which case no offence had been committed.

It is probable that Claire Short refrained from commenting earlier for fear of prejudicing the case. If Ms Short had made her revelations earlier the government may have been so embarrassed that continuing with the court case would make no difference. But to have kept quiet after the case had collapsed would have allowed the government to claim that they had dropped the case because Ms Gun's revelations were not true.

Whether you feel Ms Short should be brought to task over her statements is up to you, but to do so would seem to confirm that the intelligence services did indeed do what they are accused of doing. In fact Tony Blair's comments that Ms Short has been "deeply irresponsible" would also seem to confirm this. I am quite sure he would have no hesitation in saying her statements were untrue if that were the case. He could do that even if he knew her statements were true, but he can't be certain that Ms Short doesn't have some proof hidden away, and Phoney Tony can't afford to be shown to be a liar yet again. But don't worry, the security services will find and remove what she's got and then the field will be wide open again.

Edit: typo

[Agrajag]

Lynx

Thanks for the comments, well thought out and presented. I don't agree with everything you say, but like I said it is obviously your own opinion on the matter, presented in a considered manner, in your own words.

If you feel that people are entitled to make allegations which they themselves cannot substantiate then it's not really for me. There are so many reasons that hearsay is inadmissible it is not even worth going into. I know this is not a court or anything, however I had though this area at least would have some ground rules.

I prefer debate which involves people substantiating their own arguments and not just quoting others. Whatever the perceived status of the person being quoted. Bland statements that people have committed a crime are meaningless, unless someone can say what the actual crime is. Too often the answer is "obviously it's a crime" or "it's common sense", that's not how it really works. Common sense plays no part in the legal system, international or domestic.

To put the record straight before I take my leave, he didn't actually start this by quoting anyone, he simply made the statement

"The point here is that they are clearly not being held to account by anyone. Or if they are being held to account, then those doing the accounting are themselves breaking International Law."

He started quoting when asked to substantiate his allegations, but was never able to actually answer the straight forward question, what crime ?

Take care and have fun

Steve

[lynx]

Originally posted by Agrajag@29 February 2004 - 11:06
To put the record straight before I take my leave, he didn't actually start this by quoting anyone, he simply made the statement

"The point here is that they are clearly not being held to account by anyone. Or if they are being held to account, then those doing the accounting are themselves breaking International Law."

He started quoting when asked to substantiate his allegations, but was never able to actually answer the straight forward question, what crime ?

Surely this is how we develop debates?

We will quite often make statements which we assume to be self-evident. It is only when someone queries that assumption that it becomes obvious that we should have provided some corroboration. It is then perfectly acceptable to quote from the experts on the matter under discussion.

I could understand your reasoning about "what crime" if lefty were the one making the direct accusations, but afaik the statements about illegality have come directly from the UN itself, so they are the ones who need to show exactly what they mean. Unfortunately it is likely that for the sake of diplomacy the matter will be allowed to quietly drift away and no charges will be brought, in which case your question may never be answered.

To cover your specific point, if, as stated by the UN, the intelligence services have broken International Law, then lefty's statement is true as a logical consequence. If and when the UN specifies which laws the intelligence services have infringed, we can then folllow the chain of logic to lefty's statement:
Has International Law been broken?
No - no further action.
Yes - Are the intelligence services being held to account?
...No - case proved against intelligence services and those who should be watching them
...Yes - case proved against those who are watching the intelligence services.

Either way, the government gets it for allowing the intelligence services to do what they are alleged to have done, or for dereliction of duty in not watching over them.

Edit: clarity of levels of No/Yes

[ilw]

Q. How legal is this sort of intelligence gathering?

My government sources say it is legal.

They are saying everybody does this, that the British UN mission in New York is the target of other people trying to eavesdrop on it.

They're saying that this is really a bit of a storm in a teacup, that it's not the same as sort of planting a little microphone on somebody's lapel.

The Foreign Office says: "GCHQ and MI6 never act outside the law, neither here in Britain, nor abroad."

But there is some debate about this.

Malcolm Shaw QC, Professor of International Law at the University of Leicester, said: "It's not legal to bug foreign diplomats, certainly not without their consent.

"With regards to the United Nations this is covered by the UN headquarters agreements as well as general diplomatic law and it is certainly not legal."

The UN also says it is illegal.

source = bbc ews website

I'm not convinced by either side really, seems like its a bit of a grey spot. I reallly doubt its legal or accepted. But the articles and conventions leftism quoted don't seem to address the actual offence (if as suggested here it was reception of information that was being broadcast). Though I haven't seen anything from the general diplomatic law mentioned.