A Snoopers Charter

A future with less freedom, not more?

Andy Halsall commented on the lack of respect for liberties that the Draft Communications Data Bill (CDB) provides especially in the context of election promises and the coalition agreement between parties in Government.

"Before the General election the Prime Minister said that  'Faced with any problem, any crisis – given any excuse – Labour grasp for more information, pulling more and more people into the clutches of state data capture… And the Government doesn’t want to stop with the basic information. They want the most complex, important, personal information there is… Scare tactics to herd more dis-empowered citizens into the clutches of officialdom'.”

“He was right then.  Now however the Coalition is aiming to do exactly what they claimed to stand against.  To 'grasp' for more and more sensitive data, claiming that it will help fight crime and deal with terrorism without having an impact on privacy or liberty. Now he is dead wrong. I'd have to agree with  David Davis says it is 'incredibly intrusive' and would only 'catch the innocent and incompetent.'"

"The Pirate Party is committed to civil liberties and the protection of personal information online, it does not support the arbitrary wiretapping of an entire nation.  At one time it seemed the coalition felt the same. Their Coalition agreement included statements that:"

• We will introduce safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.  


• We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason.  

"Those promises appear to not be worth the paper they were written on and we now face a huge threat in the form of the CDB."

Andy Halsall
Campaigns Officer
Pirate Party UK
@ajehals

campaigns@pirateparty.org.uk

Contact:
press@pirateparty.org.uk
+44 (0) 161 987 7880