Data retention question

[Peter Fairbrother]

On 18/07/14 17:18, Brian Morrison wrote:

> This time 450+ MPs appear to have not noticed that the new legislation
> makes the blanket data retention aspects even worse and hence the ECJ
> objection to its predecessor is quite unchanged.

I don't think that's the case - while it does nothing to make the 
blanket collection regime better, it doesn't seem to me to make it any 
worse.



What the MPs apparently did fail to notice was that the Bill was in two 
unrelated parts: though the first clue was in the name, the Data 
Retention and Investigatory Powers bill.


The Data Retention bit, sections 1 and 2, while wrong-headed and the 
wrong way to do it, and not complying with the ECtJ decision, and mostly 
caused by their previous inaction, was in fact a real possible emergency.

“Paedophiles and terrorists will walk free if you vote this down” - I 
can't say I can actually disagree with that.



The Investigatory Powers part (sections 3-5), on the other hand, was no 
emergency.

More important, and I don't care how much Teresa May doublespeaks 
otherwise, it also begins to implement the measures in the Comms bill 
which was rejected a couple years ago.



They didn't see the latter, didn't care, or were complicit. But anyone 
who believed it had nothing to do with the comms bill got screwed.



-- Peter Fairbrother




> Or did the whips
> blackmail them all by referring to their character notes?
>