Report says we must strike the right balance between privacy and security

From the Faculty of Advocates:

"The Dean of Faculty, James Wolffe, QC, has hailed as a "great public service" a major report by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation which called for a new all-embracing law on surveillance."

"David Anderson, QC, said the current law was fragmented and obscure, and "variable in the protections it affords the innocent." He added: "It is time for a clean slate."

"Responding to the Investigatory Powers Review, A Question of Trust, Mr Wolffe said: "By shining a sharp forensic light on the surveillance powers of public authorities, the Independent Reviewer has done a great public service. I hope that the Government will accept his conclusion that we need a new legislative code which strikes the right balance between privacy and security..."

"He concluded that a comprehensive and comprehensible new law should be drafted from scratch. "

"He said: "Modern communications networks can be used by the unscrupulous for purposes ranging from cyber-attack, terrorism and espionage to fraud, kidnap and child sexual exploitation. A successful response to these threats depends on entrusting public bodies with the powers they need to identify and follow suspects in a borderless online world."

"But trust requires verification. Each intrusive power must be shown to be necessary, clearly spelled out in law, limited in accordance with international human rights standards and subject to demanding and visible safeguards."

http://www.advocates.org.uk/news/news_20150612_reviewer.html
 

Theresa May

From  The Register:

 "In his introduction to the report, David Anderson invokes much of what Timothy C. May's cypherpunk manifesto (8.3.4.) describes as "the four horsemen of the infopocalypse: drug-dealers, money-launderers, terrorists, and pedophiles."


Modern communications networks can be used by the unscrupulous for purposes ranging from cyber-attack, terrorism and espionage to fraud, kidnap and child sexual exploitation. "A collective response to the report from the members of the Don't Spy on Us coalition notes that "No strong case to date has been made for the Snooper's Charter."
Anderson does not call for an extension of powers unless the government makes a detailed operational case (which it has so far refused to do) and a "rigorous assessment has been conducted of the lawfulness, likely effectiveness, intrusiveness and cost".

This is a powerful indictment of the lack of evidence provided by the government for the new sweeping powers they want to use to intrude into the private lives of ordinary Britons.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/11/independent_terror_reviewer_offers_support_for_masssurveillance