The Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill aka the spycops bill is the continuation of the efforts of the intelligence services and the police to return to a pre-snowden/pre-ECJ dripa ruling legal state. Here are my notes and links …
They tried three times to get permission to bug our phones and surveill our internet usage.
- Interception Modernisation Programme
- Communications Data Bill 2008
- Draft Communications Data Bill, this was 2012/13. Didn’t make it to Parliament.
- Investigatory Powers Act 2016, this one got through
There is amongst the Left, some anger about the fact that “economic security” is a reason for intelligence service intervention/operations. This is about Unions and strikes, and may be used to support the public authorities in hunting down copyright infringement.
Jacqui Smith was the Labour Home Secretary when the 2008 bill was being negotiated, and Andy Burnham was Shadow in 2012, with Sir Keir Starmer as the shadow security minister.
I have a number of blog articles, tagged “surveillance” which cover some of these law changes, once you get through my appeals for Labour Conference to do something.