Political pressure is again rising to push through blanket surveillance measures in the United Kingdom. Four former home secretaries have urged for a return of the Snoopers' Charter. In a letter published in the Times, the politicians – Labour's Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Alan Johnson and the Conservative Lord Baker – support new blanket monitoring powers contained in the Communications Data Bill.

Pirate Party UK Leader Loz Kaye said:

"After the Queen's speech I warned about the danger of a Snoopers' Charter reboot. Now politicians from Labour and the Conservatives want to do exactly that, and are calling for the return of the Communications Data Bill."

The Science Museum Group is considering plans to close one of its northern sites. Heritage will be under further pressure if additional cuts put forward the government’s upcoming spending review go ahead. As the Science Museum London is not being considered for closure, the Museum of Science and Industry (Mosi) in Manchester, the National Railway Museum in York and the National Media Museum in Bradford are all under threat. This is following cuts brought in by the Coalition government in 2010 leaving these facilities without vital support.

Education spokesperson and York Pirate Party branch member Leanne Ainsworth said:

"These are great quality museums that it would be a tragedy to lose. They are fantastic resources for teaching and inspiring young people about science and engineering."

The identity of the whistleblower behind the largest intelligence leak in the NSA's history has been released together with a video interview credited to Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras. In the video, Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old Systems analyst explains his motivations, intentions and the risks he now faces.

Pirate Party UK Leader Loz Kaye said:

"As the news of the NSA surveillance scandal broke, I made it clear that the only reason we got to hear about these abuses is because someone had the courage to blow the whistle."

"Unlike his former employers, Edward Snowden has stepped out of the shadows to explain why he needed to expose the actions of his government. As he puts it "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to" and that "..these things need to be determined by the public"."

The Guardian has reported that the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the agency responsible for providing signals intelligence to the UK Government, has been making use of the recently outed Top Secret US PRISM programme for its own intelligence collection efforts. PRISM apparently allows the intelligence community to covertly access a broad range of data held on the servers of several major US-based Internet companies.

Pirate Party UK Leader Loz Kaye said:

"If GCHQ has access to this programme, then the Government has some serious questions to answer. Like many, I was already concerned about the parallels between this US programme and the Snoopers' Charter. Now it seems the Communications Data Bill is the least of our worries - some of its desired, but denied, capabilities are already in place and have been since the Coalition came to power."

It has been widely reported that the US intelligence community can access a broad range of data held on the servers of several major US based Internet companies. The data held by these companies would relate to American and non-US citizens alike. Documents describing the secret program, codenamed PRISM, show the extent of electronic surveillance operations.

Pirate Party UK Leader Loz Kaye said:

"If these reports are accurate then it seems that the kind of secret, widespread and in depth collection of data, with very little accountability and a lot of scope for abuse is already happening in the US. What happens in the US concerns us all. Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook all appear to be caught in Obama's merciless prism."

Following days of turmoil in the Tory party on European issues, Conservative MP James Wharton has topped the private members bill ballot. He has confirmed that this will be used to introduce legislation for an EU referendum by 2017. Now this is firmly in the parliamentary timetable no party can ignore the increasing calls for the public to have a say on our future in Europe.

Pirate Party UK spokesperson Andy Halsall said:

"Our position on an EU referendum has not changed. As we clearly say in our Manifesto, the British people must have a say on our membership of the European Union. The Pirate Party and our members believe firmly in self determination, there is no reason to fear the opinion of the British public."

This week it has been reported in the media that personal data collected by Everything Everywhere may have been offered for sale to the Metropolitan Police by research firm Ipsos Mori. The reporting suggested that information about subscribers gender, age and postcode, as well as the websites they had visited, the time of day text messages had been sent and the location of customers when making calls was available at a price.

Loz Kaye Pirate Party UK Leader said

"It's tempting to think that EE have taken their name Everything Everywhere too literally."

"Ipsos Mori seem to want to have it both ways. Given the well documented problems with anonymisation, while Ben Page's statements are welcome, they are not entirely reassuring. It's difficult to square these promises with Ipsos Mori's announcement to the markets back in April that the deal will give 'the ability to access ...

Today the Coalition Government set out its plans for the next parliamentary session in the Queen's Speech.

The speech was more notable for what was not in it. The Communications Data Bill or "Snoopers' Charter" was at least dropped in name. Missed opportunities included leaving out proposal for a register of lobbyists, and not acting on the promised power to recall MPs.

Pirate party Leader Loz Kaye said:

"This Government has clearly run out of steam and ideas. With flagging participation in our democracy, families and the economy under pressure we need a radical reforming agenda. Instead the coalition have given us UKIP-lite. The speech was full of vague promises, and fretting about red tape and foreigners. Does this government really want to turn landlords and doctors in to border police?"

"Far from burying the Snoopers' Charter the speech promises measures to enable the investigation of crime in 'cyberspace ...

A group of 100 leading cancer specialists have spoken out about high prices for cancer drugs. Some chronic myeloid leukaemia treatments approved in the US, but not licensed in the UK range between £76,000 and £100,000 per patient per year. The cost of the drug Gilvec has in fact risen since all the original research costs were covered.

In the journal Blood the physicians say that the unsustainable expense "may be causing harm to patients" and are advocating that reasonable prices are "a necessity to save the lives of patients who cannot afford them".

Pirate Party Leader Loz Kaye said:

"The extent of this profiteering is truly shocking. Companies hold the power of life and death over patients."

In what would be a humiliating climbdown for Theresa May cracks opened up again in the coalition on civil liberties. In a U-turn from his appearance in favour of the CDB on the BBC Today programme Nick Clegg announced "that is not necessarily workable or proportional so it's not going to happen".

The Communications Data Bill, better known as the ”Snoopers' Charter” has been widely criticised by the Pirate Party and other campaigners as being an unnecessary attack on the privacy of British citizens. It threatened to track communication by email, phone, web use, even gaming chat in blanket surveillance.

It still remains to be seen what will be announced in the Queen's Speech.

Pirate Party Leader Loz Kaye said:

”This proposal should never have come forward in the first place, it would turn us all from citizens in to suspects. I hope this is indeed the good ...