Just as the NRA and its spying on American citizens has become a byword and a hissing among Americans, the spying of the Government Communications Headquarters of Britain is facing blow-back, including the latest, a claim filed on behalf of eight Libyans who allege, among other things, that the British government intercepted legally privileged communications between lawyers and clients. The government is also accused of arranging for dissidents who fled Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime to be forcibly returned into the hands of torturers.

The claim alleges that, "There is a strong likelihood that the respondents have intercepted and are intercepting the applicant's legally privileged communications in respect of the cases." Furthermore, the GCHQ has been involved in "mass scale communications gathering as part of the temporare programme" which "monitors and collates, on a blanket basis, the full range of electronic communications."

That the government would resort to breaking its core values, such as the right of privacy between attorney and client, and this in the name of defending its core values, such as could be threatened by terrorists, strike many as abject hypocrisy.