Several months ago this site reported on the spate of incidents in UK where surveillance laws where used against the public for the most petty of incidents. From dog fouling to school selection to children shell fishing.
There was a host of complaints about these issues, with Local Government Association chairman, Sir Simon Milton, writing to all of the councils to warn them that they were misusing their powers and several Amps stood up and commented on the issue, including Brian Binley.
Numerous other influential people commented on the issue including:
Quincy Whitaker, a human rights barrister, who said that “[the] majority of these applications are potentially illegal…Most[ Uses of RIPA] don’t seem proportionate — there are probably less intrusive ways of investigating dog fouling, for instance.”
Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs select committee stated “I am personally shocked by the numbers involved in surveillance by the local authorities. It is important we make sure there is proper accountability and transparency in the way this operates”.
In July 2008 the European Court of Human Rights found that the UK’s surveillance laws lack clarity and accountability to prevent abuses of power.
If this was not enough Privacy International now places the UK in the top rank of monitored countries, in the same grouping as China and Russia. Demonstrating that the time of “Big Brother”, is truly here.
Despite all of this, the incidents continue to happen.
Recently the Sunday Telegraph produced a report showing that around 75% of councils use surveillance against their own electorate. The site also conducted a freedom of information request on its local council and found they did not use RIPA. There is not an unusually high crime rate in the area, nor is there a large amount of dog mess, piles or rubbish, or hoards of children attending the wrong school – in fact it all seems to work just fine here.
More recently, and perhaps more worryingly, councils are now starting to employ people, and children, to do the spying for them.
This means, due to the way the laws work, councils would not need to use RIPA, so if those powers are ever taken away from them, they already have other methods available to use against their population.