The Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the only judicial body with the power to investigate MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, has for the first time ordered GCHQ to destroy illegally obtained documents. In today’s judgement and determination in a case brought by Amnesty International and other claimants, the IPT found that GCHQ had illegally obtained two documents that were subject to legal professional privilege and humiliatingly, ordered the Cheltenham spooks to destroy them.

“The Tribunal is satisfied that the legally privileged information contained in the two relevant documents will be adequately protected from any unlawful use or disclosure in the future. However in order to emphasise the importance of the protection of legally privileged material the Tribunal has required GCHQ to give an undertaking that the parts of the documents containing legally privileged information will be destroyed or deleted so as to render such information inaccessible to the agency in the future.”

Alan Rusbridger must be having a chuckle…