The Investigatory Powers Bill would be better suited to a dictatorship
Three times, Theresa May said the Investigatory Powers Bill was ‘world leading’ when she presented the UK’s new surveillance law to the House of Commons in November. Just over a month later, she was proved right – when China passed a much-criticised surveillance law last December, the Chinese Government said it was inspired by UK and US legislation.
As the old saying goes, in heaven the food is Italian, the beer is German and the police are British. The rule of law in this country is upheld on the principle that the police are not our masters but our servants. We don’t have military police and you rarely see armed officers on our streets. Maybe crime would be lower if we had tougher law enforcement, but that’s besides the point - it’s just not how we do things here.
Yet Theresa May, the Home Secretary, wants to give police powers that even that most autocratic and unfree countries do not have. She is turning local bobbies into snoopers, inspectors into hackers, and in doing so she is eroding what little privacy we have from the prying eyes of an increasingly powerful government.
Source: independent.co.uk
It’s not the case that encryption is a rare thing that only two or three rich companies own and you can regulate them in some way. Encryption is widely available. It may make someone feel good for a moment but it’s not really of benefit. If you halt or weaken encryption, the people that you hurt are not the folks that want to do bad things. It’s the good people. The other people know where to go.
Source: telegraph.co.uk