The UK's Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has decided that the current mass surveillance program of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) does not violate European human rights law. In response to the decision, James Welch, legal director for Liberty, said: "So a secretive court thinks that secret safeguards shown to it in secret are an adequate protection of our privacy. The IPT cannot grasp why so many of us are deeply troubled about GCHQ’s Tempora operation: a seemingly unfettered power to rifle through our online communications."