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100k+ Petition: MPs Must Consider Debating Snoopers' Charter Again

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday November 30 2016, @03:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the keeping-tabs-on-everything dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A petition to Parliament requesting the repeal of the Investigatory Powers Act has received the 100,000 signatures required to make Parliament "consider" debating the issue.

Although the Investigatory Powers Act doesn't actually exist at the moment — it remains a Bill of Parliament which will not become an Act until it achieves royal assent — the deep unpopularity of the surveillance legislation has already provoked over 100,000 people to sign a petition against it.

This means it meets the threshold for Parliament to "consider" debating its proposition, though in practice debates are rarely carried out resulting from such petitions, and the repeal of the Investigatory Powers Act is ultimately extremely unlikely.

Created by someone calling themselves Tom Skillinger, and titled "Repeal the new Surveillance laws (Investigatory Powers Act)" the petition described the legislation as "an absolute disgrace to both privacy and freedom".

Skillinger wrote:

"With this bill, they will be able to hack, read and store any information from any citizen's computer or phone, without even the requirement of proof that the citizen is up to no good."

"This essentially entitles them to free reign [sic] of your files, whether you're a law-abiding citizen or not!"

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Atreidin on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:01PM

    by Atreidin (3582) on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:01PM (#435027)

    So they don't even need to debate it, only "consider" doing so? What a joke.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:11PM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 30 2016, @06:11PM (#435034) Journal

    They (our democratically elected representatives) already debated it, it went through the House of Lord's and has been given Royal Ascent. The thing is, us proles were too busy watching X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing to notice or to make our opinions known to them. I dare say our much admired and respected tabloid press span a good yarn about protecting ourselves from terrorists and paedophiles and anti-Britishness.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:22PM (#435189)

      Royal Ascent

      Don't you mean royal assend?

  • (Score: 1) by RS3 on Wednesday November 30 2016, @09:47PM

    by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday November 30 2016, @09:47PM (#435141)

    So they don't even need to debate it, only "consider" doing so?

    It's an amazingly powerful sheeple sedative.