TEMPO.CO, London - Three organizations in Britain have filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights, accusing the country's spy agency GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) of using its online surveillance programs to violate millions of citizens' privacy.
Big Brother Watch, English PEN and Open Rights Group joined forces to the agency has acted illegally by collecting vast amounts of data, including the contents of emails and social media messages.
The legal challenge came after documents disclosed by U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden exposed the extent of mass data gathering carried out by NSA and GCHQ.
The group says the UK government has the capacity to collect over 21 petabytes of data each day, which is equal to sending all the information in all the books in the British Library 192 times each day.
"The laws governing how Internet data is accessed were written when barely anyone had broadband access and were intended to cover old fashioned copper telephone lines," said Nick Pickles, Big Brother Watch Director.
Lawyer Daniel Carey said Thursday that papers for the lawsuit were filed this week at the court, which is based in Strasbourg, France.
The GCHQ has been arguing that its activities are legal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act passed back in 2000.
Guardian | Abdul Manan
