I got to conference in time for the Justice and Home Affairs policy seminar, although not on time. I was called to speak and I asked about the investigatory powers act; I explained a bit about it since most don’t share my monomania and described how it works in that the telcos and ISSPs collect your call data records and internet usage records and make them available to any of 28 law enforcement agencies, all of this without proving probable cause and that the retrieval is not subject to judicial oversight. I said,
It’s the digital equivalent of stop and search.
I noted that its predecessor has been struck down, that Human Rights law is designed to protect us against the state and asked, noting that Labour had voted for this law, what we were going to do.