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posted by janrinok on Friday November 18 2016, @11:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-feel-safer-already dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Despite loudly, and repeatedly, raised concerns from activists and members of Parliament, the UK's Snooper's Charter (a.k.a., Investigatory Powers bill [PDF]) has been passed by both parliamentary houses and only needs the formality of the royal signature to make it official.

[...] The government, of course, is trying to portray this as nothing more than a fine tuning of pre-existing laws, specifically the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Glossed over in its perfunctory "nothing to see here" explanation is the fact that RIPA was also rushed into existence to codify other secret and illegal surveillance programs.

But it's no ordinary update of existing investigatory laws. Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group calls the Snooper's Charter "the most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy." Thanks to the new powers, UK intelligence agencies should be able to put together very extensive dossiers on pretty much anyone they feel like.

Quick, Deucalion, run!

Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161117/07202536067/parliament-passes-snoopers-charter-opens-up-citizens-to-whole-new-levels-domestic-surviellance.shtml


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  • (Score: 2) by Squidious on Saturday November 19 2016, @10:31PM

    by Squidious (4327) on Saturday November 19 2016, @10:31PM (#429655)

    Possibly her late husband was a high ranking officer in WW2, and thus got a free pass with the local constabulary? It was one of the experiences from our trip that left the biggest impression upon a very young me.

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