Decca Aitkenhead, writing in The Guardian, profiles Stella Rimington, former head of MI5: She spoke out against 42-day detention last month, and this week welcomes the government’s climb-down unequivocally. “We shouldn’t introduce new intrusions into our civil liberties unless they are absolutely necessary – and nobody had demonstrated that they were necessary. If there isn’t [...]
According to Public Servant magazine: The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, has said giving people the power to lock their credit report would be a better way to combat identity theft rather than identity cards. Clegg said letting people lock their credit reports would make it harder for fraudsters to open bank accounts [...]
According to The Economist: The government’s now-shelved plan for 42-day detention is not the only proposal to have provoked portentous warnings about threats to ancient British liberties. Ministerial enthusiasm for a £4.7 billion national identity-card scheme (and the database that would power it) has elicited warnings about cost overruns and data-security risks from sober commentators [...]
The Times’ leader-writer comments on the Intercept Modernisation Programme: The security forces already have ample monitoring powers. As in the debate on 42-day detention without trial, the Government has been unable to point to a single case in which the greater powers it seeks would unquestionably have made the public safer. This proposal has the [...]
The Independent’s leader-writer comments on the Intercept Modernisation Programme: The Home Secretary is expected to make a speech today preparing the ground for a new bill which will go still further into areas into which no government has any business delving. The forthcoming Communications Data Bill threatens to create a “super-database” which will store a [...]
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