Fragment of the Berlin Wall in front of the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg. Wikicommons/ francois. Some rights reserved.Sometimes it takes an unexpected stranger to remind you of what you have, and of what you are at risk of losing. Roman Zakharov, a Russian publisher who challenged Russia’s surveillance legislation, is that stranger for many Brits and Europeans. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights judgment on Friday 4 December 2015 was remarkable, not because it tore up the rule book on the jurisprudence surrounding state surveillance in the Council of Europe, but because It followed that rule book, applied it to a modern surveillance framework, and came out with a damning assessment of that framework. it followed that rule book, applied it to a modern surveillance framework, and came out with a damning assessment of that framework.
The judgment revealed three things that should kept in mind by any government gearing up for a reform of its communications surveillance laws:
