Thursday 10 July 2014

My letter to Angie Bray MP concerning the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Dear Ms Bray,

The Government announcement about this legislation is immensely concerning on many levels. Firstly, that this is being rushed through with very little time for MPs such as yourself to read and scrutinise the law before voting upon it. Secondly, that the content it concerns - the blanket retention of data - was found to be unlawful and an infringement of the right to privacy by the Court of Justice of the EU, and this Bill appears, on the surface, to simply be an attempt at not allowing the UK Government or ISPs to be sued for such infringement. And thirdly, that under the surface, the Bill paves the way for further regulation on data retention to happen without due legal process.

This is bad legislation and an extremely underhanded way of extending already over-reaching powers of mass-surveillance in a fashion that stops democratic process from occurring.

Unless you and other MPs act, the British public will have to rely upon the House of Lords to correct this colossal mistake that has far-reaching implications for personal privacy. I have no doubt that you, as a duly elected representative should be very, very concerned as to how this legislation is being rail-roaded through Parliament, with "cross-party" support being gained before the Bill was even published. This is a gross abuse of the political process and should be viewed as an embarrassment to the UK as a whole.

Please help turn this around, to offer fair scrutiny of this legislation, and to respect the higher Court of Human Justice of the EU.

Yours faithfully,

Adam Christie.