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Tories poised to pass emergency laws to introduce 'snoopers charter'
Ministers push for new legislation to track phone usage
Mrs May called for a law to allow the collection of vast amounts of information about emails, phone calls and internet activities.
Lib Dems and Labour warn they will not back return of the 'snooper's charter' proposed in 2013
Ministers are poised to pass emergency laws to require phone companies to log records of phone calls, texts and internet usage, but Labour and Liberal Democrats are warning that they will not allow any new law to become a backdoor route to reinstating a wider "snooper's charter".
The government would need all-party support for the legislation to be passed through parliament quickly, giving Labour some leverage if it wants to ensure civil liberties are safeguarded.
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jul/06/track-phone-usage-law-snoopers-charter
My guess is that this will be pushed though with little real change.
Mrs May called for a law to allow the collection of vast amounts of information about emails, phone calls and internet activities.
Lib Dems and Labour warn they will not back return of the 'snooper's charter' proposed in 2013
Ministers are poised to pass emergency laws to require phone companies to log records of phone calls, texts and internet usage, but Labour and Liberal Democrats are warning that they will not allow any new law to become a backdoor route to reinstating a wider "snooper's charter".
The government would need all-party support for the legislation to be passed through parliament quickly, giving Labour some leverage if it wants to ensure civil liberties are safeguarded.
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jul/06/track-phone-usage-law-snoopers-charter
My guess is that this will be pushed though with little real change.
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Does Labour really want it? They did after all introduce the legislation struck down by the ECJ for being too intrusive.
True, but to be fair they have a different leader now who is possibly a little more liberal.
I suspect the Tory's and Labour's position on the snoopers charter are pretty close however in truth.
When it comes to illiberal policy they are a match for New Labour. And if anything going beyond.
Pretty much, yes.
My suapicion is that there are significant differences in their positions, but they can be pretty mich interchanged depending upon which is in office.
But surely no one can suggest that these people are for small government anymore?
I would say it's back to the time of monarchy of a few centuries ago. Zero help, maximum tax (unless you are rich) and the eyes and ears of government to be everywhere.
I do wonder sometimes about the Home Office - this proposal first came about under Labour and the Conservatives stood against it - then three years after gaining power it emerged again.
It was unworkable and absurd when first announced, it was still unworkable in 2013 and will continue to be so now.
Just on the level of data it is unworkable. The more data you collect, the greater the chance of false positives would actually end up causing more work not less (the same problem exists with the DNA database that was proposed a few years ago).
Another problem is that it subverts the age old principle that you are innocent until proven guilty. So what is some person who was a alleged terrorist sent you an email, or you visited some website - proves nothing, yet you are going to find that you will end of justifying it. Part of the rules are that it is only the headers that they will store (the amount of data is just too large to even have a snowballs chance of finding anything remotely useful). This is dry and provides no real information past the size, source and destination.
So this will only make things harder, is absurd, unworkable - carries no upside but a huge downside.
Small government only when it suits their own agenda.
Rather laughable that Labour should now oppose it as well considering it was them who sold our liberties to the American intelligence agencies.
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
Either that or the Home Office is run by the borg and any poor unfortunate who arrives as a minister is immediately assimilated.
I feel you're probably right.
It's quite sad to see that some of those previously tying to whip up a storm about civil liberties, go very quiet, absent, when the Tory party run riot all over them.
The only difference between Labour and Tory, is the specific pet projects they like to spend our money on to appease their supporters.
If they don't oppose it, that could be the straw that broke the camel's back for me as a LD supporter.
Their whole purpose for being, in my view, is to stand up for social liberalism, and this proposal is the antithesis of that.
I gave up on Labour as a liberal party years ago, and have never been convinced of the Tories' credentials in this area.
It's also not the only thing - off the top of my head let's not forget the scrapping of the "science-based drugs policy" in favour of the Tories' media-based policy, or the support for the porn filter and "rape porn" possession ban (neither of which were in the coalition agreement), and not to mention the "Great Repeal Bill" that was watered down to pointlessness.
And that's excluding the various constitutional reforms we were promised by both parties that failed to materialise, along with questionable reforms to the benefits system and abject failure to control the deficit or housing crisis.
I've already abandoned them. The Lib Dems were the alternative, yet after five years of having them in government we'll be in roughly the same position with civil liberties as we would have been had Labour stayed in power. Admittedly Labour would have been worse - we would have had ID cards and they've explicitly commited themselves to extending porn restrictions - but only by a hair's width, and arguably the dire performance of this government could well result in a Labour majority in 2015, so we'll be back where we were and five years of the alternative party in government will have achieved nothing.
UKIP? Don't make me laugh. And the Greens (with whom I do have some sympathies) have shown themselves to be Left, rather than liberal in a number of areas -- I might be swayed that way but not at present.
Let's require all vehicles to be fitted with GPS so they can be tracked at all times as that knowledge can fight terrorism.
How about giving the government the right to examine all bank accounts so they can fight terrorism?
Thought Police next?