Explain me this. If the evidence can be used when obtained in a different way, why not when obtained by intercept?
Three men were convicted of the airline terrorism plot at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday after prosecutors circumvented the ban on using intercept material in evidence.
Coded e-mails between two of the plot leaders, Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar, and their terrorist handlers in Pakistan were intercepted by surveillance officers. They revealed communications about recruiting activists, acquiring bombmaking chemicals and engaging in a dummy run to test airport security.
The e-mails were not adduced in evidence at the first trial last year because of the ban on using intercept material. That trial ended with a jury failing to agree on whether or not there had been an international terrorism plot to attack airliners.
For the second trial a court order was obtained in California requiring Yahoo! to hand over the content of the e-mail traffic. In that form it could be adduced as evidence.
That means the email evidence can be used even though it has been accessed other than through the consent of the emailers themselves. So I concur with the view that it's 'difficult to understand a system that willingly rules this out of play in our courts'; I can also see why in other countries people are 'bemused' by such a system. What's the barrier? With evidence obtained by torture, there are at least three objections to allowing its admissibility: torture is cruel and should not be countenanced by a civilized society; as a crime against humanity it's in breach of international law; the evidence it produces may be unsound in any case because produced under duress. With intercepts, this latest case shows there are no moral qualms about gaining access to the evidence of terrorist intentions through, so to say, back-door access to private emails. So the prohibition is puzzling.