At Conference I have just spoken against the Regulation of Powers Bill/Act at the Home Affairs Policy Seminar. I mentioned that Labour has removed “Economic Security” from the list of grounds for spying on people, but that the authorising of “bulk powers” and the desire of the intelligence services to find bad people by comparing them with good people and the need to trawl all the UK’s Internet traffic is creating/will create a chilling effect on the right to free speech.
I also made the point the Labour Party’s bureaucracy’s similar trawling of people’s social media spores also creates a chilling effect; there are people in the Party that are avoiding social media other than with friend and family, and even unsure on using the new my Labour app. …