Yesterday in the vote on the second reading of the Investigatory Powers Bill (aka the snoopers charter), there were just two Labour votes against. All credit to Dennis Skinner and David Winnick who were amongst the 15 votes against (plus two tellers) comprising Lib Dem, Plaid, Green and SDLP MPs and a solitary SNP rebel. No doubt this caused much discomfort to Corbynistas in the PLP who felt obliged to abide by collective responsibility. New times.
Andy Burnham had justified Labour’s (i.e. essentially his) decision to abstain on the bill by claiming that to describe the bill as a snooper’s charter was “insulting” to the police and intelligence services:
To call this a ‘Snooper’s Charter‘ I think is to be insulting to people who work in the police and security services. It implies they do the jobs they do because they like spying on people. Actually they do the jobs they do to keep people safe. I don’t think the issue is that people will generally just poke around (in your email or web browsing history).”
Most Labour members are likely to have a different view. The late Michael Meacher put it very well just over a year ago on this site:
Whenever there is a terrorist incident MI5 never misses an opportunity to demand ‘more resources’, closely followed in tandem by Cameron and May. Nobody of course would wish to deny the security services the funding and powers they need to target terrorists, but there are genuine questions to be asked as to how far extra powers are needed, especially if it is in the blanket form of mass surveillance.
The Intelligence and Security Committee responsible for overseeing the affairs of the security services and GCHQ was one of three Parliamentary committees to release a report condemning much of the draft bill. Amongst other things, it said:
…it is surprising that the protection of people’s privacy – which is enshrined in other legislation – does not feature more prominently.”
…privacy protections should form the backbone of the draft legislation, around which the exceptional powers are then built (…) Privacy considerations must form an integral part of the legislation, not merely an add-on”
…the Committee has not been provided with sufficiently compelling evidence as to why the Agencies require Bulk Equipment Interference warrants, given how broadly Targeted Equipment Interference warrants can be drawn”
To leave safeguards up to the Agencies as a matter of good practice is simply unacceptable: this new legislation is an opportunity to provide clarity and assurance and it fails to do so”
We fail to see how Parliament is expected to approve any legislation when a key component, on which much of it rests, has not been agreed, let alone scrutinised by an independent body”
The committees’ between them recommended no fewer than 123 changes. In the opinion of Liberty, the bill as it exists now contains no improvements at all, but is worse in several respects. What it describes as “downright scary” and as reasons why the bill “cannot be allowed to pass into law” are as follows:
- Powers to hack thousands or even millions of devices en masse remain – in spite of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s (ISC) recommendations that they be removed. Bulk hacking is an incredibly intrusive and potentially dangerous power that could seriously threaten everybody’s data security– yet the Home Office remains bent on legalising it despite admitting the Home Secretary can’t fully assess “the necessity and proportionality” of each hack before issuing a warrant for it.
- The state will still be able to access bulk personal datasets – massive files of highly personal information (everything from political views to medical records) on thousands of innocent people. Despite the committees’ protests, the intelligence agencies still wouldn’t even need a specific warrant to collect each dataset.
- The intelligence agencies will still be able to gather and analyse the internet histories of the entire population.
- The ISC gave the draft bill’s pitiful privacy protections a slating, and said robust safeguards should form “an integral part of the legislation”. So the Home Office changed the title of the “General Protections” section to “General Privacy Protections”. Nothing else in the section has been changed. This astonishingly superficial change does absolutely nothing to protect the privacy of every person in Britain, which is compromised beyond reason by this Bill.
- MPs, journalists and lawyers still stand to have their communications spied on:
- If the authorities want to look at MPs’ communications relating to constituency matters (but not national, personal or any other issues), the Prime Minister must give the nod.
- Lawyers’ communications can be obtained so long as there is an “exceptional and compelling” reason. “Exceptional and compelling” are not defined.
- Journalists have no protection from hacking or interception. Their only safeguard is that a judge must sign off any plans to gather their communications data if the stated intention is to identify a source.
- Targeted surveillance warrants could still be ‘thematic’ – which means they could cover thousands of people who “share a common purpose” or “carry out a particular activity” – and breach human rights. Both the ISC and the Joint Committee on the Bill warned against this.
- The Home Office ignored recommendations for an independent Intelligence and Surveillance Commission – sticking instead with its plans for Judicial Commissioners, appointed by the Prime Minister and funded by the Home Secretary, to both authorise and oversee the use of surveillance powers – i.e. to mark their own homework.
- Judicial Commissioners are still not required (and might not be able to) make merits-based decisions on whether to approve the Home Secretary’s surveillance warrants. As before, they only have the power to rubber stamp.
The Daily Mirror also outlines seven reasons why you should still be worried about the snoopers charter. Tory MP David Davis (who did not follow his party’s whip to support the bill) has accused the government of rushing the snoopers’ charter into law to avoid scrutiny. Even the Sun is opposed to the bill. By failing to oppose this bill at second reading, Andy Burnham is risking damage to Labour’s credibility on civil liberties. He does it not because it is a good bill worthy of Labour’s support but in order to be seen to be tough on security issues. Straight talking, honest politics? I don’t think so.