ECHR being the European Convention on Human Rights: that document the Tories so despise, they’re threatening to renounce it every other month… Because it clearly does not come from recent UK tradition. Besides, article 10 is incredibly weak and could be applied as-is in places like Syria without changing much of anything; it was explicitly formulated not to step on anyone’s toes, and any expansive interpretation by European Courts (whose coercive powers are still fairly vague in real terms, assuming a government determined to defy them – are France and Germany going to invade, if we suppress the occasional human right?) is just that, an interpretation. Meanwhile: libel laws, gag orders, and oh please destroy your computers without a shred of due process, will you old chap?
Oh, and bringing up phone hacking here is just a creative strawman: regardless of whether prosecution was right or wrong in that case, that situation saw a news company harassing private citizens, whereas here we have several National Governments being held to account on widespread abuse of their powers. I’m sure you can see the difference.
