The New Dark Age

27 February 2016 — Liberty

A couple of weeks ago we called for the Government to ‘pause, take stock and redraft’ their new surveillance plans following the mauling the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill received at the hands of campaigners, security experts, the tech industry and three cross-party parliamentary committees. We have now heard that the Government plans to publish the IP Bill next week. Which means they will have taken all of 3 weeks to incorporate over 120 recommendations into a landmark piece of legislation that will affect each and every one of us.

The powers the Government are asking for are astounding – yet still no clear case has been made as to how they will make us safer.

Safe and Sound
We CAN have surveillance laws which keep us safe while respecting our privacy. Thank you for taking action by signing up to our 8 Point Plan – the more support we have for a secure and private Britain, the louder we are. Please help us to garner even more support by sharing the 8 Point Plan on Facebook and Twitter.

Jargon Buster
The 300-page Draft Investigatory Powers Bill was so filled with technical jargon that the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee labelled it “confusing”. To break down the language barrier that shields this crucial piece of legislation from much-needed public scrutiny we created a jargon-buster.

Blog Series
In our new Safe and Sound blog series we have been exploring some of the most important parts of the IP Bill and why you should sign up to our 8 Point Plan:

1. Judicial warrants
2. Respect our data
3. Targeted surveillance – for a reason 
4. Transparency and redress
5. Intercept evidence

We want surveillance laws that keep us safe and respect our privacy and in the coming weeks we will need your support to put pressure on parliamentarians. We hope you’re ready for the fight!