“Prosecution Exemption Now Applies to Police, Spies. The British government rewrote the country's computer abuse law in March to shield law enforcement and intelligence agencies from being prosecuted for hacking.
But the action wasn't disclosed until May 14, when the government informed the civil rights group Privacy International - and seven Internet and communications service providers - about the revised hacking law in response to a hacking-related legal claim these organizations filed against a U.K. intelligence agency.
The legal claim was filed in February against the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. "The claimants asserted that GCHQ's actions were both unlawful under the Computer Misuse Act (CMA), which criminalizes hacking, and that there was not sufficiently detailed legal authority to make GCHQ's hacking 'in accordance with law,' as any violation of privacy is required to be by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights," Privacy International says in a statement.”
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