This weekend Nia Griffith MP received a petition against internet snooping from a delegation of local residents who are amongst a growing number of people nationwide who are adding their names to the petition which has already collected 150,000 names.
Explaining why there is so much concern about the government‘s proposals, Beth Landon, who organised the presentation said:
“The Communications Bill which is currently in its draft stage comes from the security services, who understandably wish to have every tool at their disposal to combat crime. However there are many of who have serious concerns not only about the effectiveness of this expensive bill, but that this will be a huge leap towards a surveillance society and open to abuse. Our worry is that terrorists and experienced criminals will find ways to avoid being tracked whilst police would have massive amounts more information to look through, making it even harder to find relevant information, with the bill engendering costs of £1.8 billion over 10 years at a time of government cutbacks. It is a huge leap towards a surveillance society, as all of the websites, email addresses, mobile phone numbers all of us have used, when we used them, and where we were at the time will be stored for a year by internet service providers and made available without warrant to police, security and intelligence services and relevant public bodies. This would provide an intimate picture of the private lives of ordinary, innocent citizens. All this stored information would also be open to abuse by private investigators, journalists and criminals involved in ID fraud for example, who would find a way to get their hands on it.”
Receiving the petition, Nia said
“We understand that the police and security services who are tackling serious terrorist incidents need to keep up with modern technology. We also need serious safeguards in place to protect people’s privacy. Government oversight plans are too half-hearted to deliver the checks and balances we need. We need proper consultation, and I would urge people to make their views known.”