Civil Liberties

Great news today that the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has announced a review of councils’ powers to launch surveillance of citizens. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act allows public authorities to, amongst other things, intercept phone calls and emails. The Act was originally introduced to lay down in legislation the circumstances in which councils, Department for Work and Pensions etc. could use covert techniques to monitor unwitting members of the public. To be fair, these techniques were already being deployed far and wide, so the principle of prescribing who had the authority to do so in the future was in itself a good idea. The problem has been that the Act has allowed public authorities to undertake surveillance of citizens with little need for justification and for relatively insignificant issues such as dog fouling.

Hopefully the review will conclude at the very least that the level of seniority of official allowed to authorise surveillance should be raised. Personally, I’m uncomfortable with any public authority beyond the police and intelligence services having these powers. I also believe that all surveillance should be subject to judicial oversight, so the least serious requests should be sanctioned by a magistrate.

The Home Office is consulting on this until July 10 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2009-ripa

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