Close Protection World News
Moderator
During his speech at the Royal United Services Institute, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK has announced that a nonpartisan review of the bounds of power the British intelligence agencies hold was scheduled to take place.
The Edward Snowden revelations have opened up our eyes to a plethora of subjects and issues, and have made it clear that we need to work harder to safeguard our basic civil liberties. The digital age has not come without its specific ailments. If anything, nowadays it has become especially difficult to keep tabs on how and when our fundamental human rights get breached and how frequently at that. Everything we communicate and produce for use online is being collected and analyzed – from our physical location to our social contacts and online discussions. The metadata we leave behind is being unabashedly collected and misused by our own security services agencies.
The people understand the magnitude of the task our intelligence and security agencies face in their line of work. Be it terrorist threats, organised crime or cyber attacks. They have their work cut out for them and they require the most suitable utilities at their disposal to accomplish their mission. But the cost to people’s privacy and civil freedom has become too great. We cannot just sacrifice the sanctity of privacy and civil liberties. There needs to be a well defined boundary set telling the agencies how far they can go in pursuit of their objectives. And this is supposed to be the parliament’s job. They are the ones that are supposed to oversee the operations of the aforementioned agencies. Only they failed spectacularly at doing their job.
The legislative framework is, simply put, out of date, bordering on being obsolete in this regard. Therefore, we need to create a digital bill of rights that would be relevant for our age and predicament. This is precisely why Mr. Clegg authorized an independent review of the existing legal framework that is today employed for surveillance.
The Liberal Democrats are proud to be the leading force in this debate in parliament. They were also the ones who disposed of the proposed Draft Communications Data Bill, which would have allowed the state surveillance apparatus access to an even more intrusive level of oversight.
At its heart, the proposed digital bill of rights establishes that there will be no wanton surveillance conducted and that all digital communication and discourse will be treated as being of the same rank as ordinary offline everyday communication and behavior. Meaning, the same rights and legal bounds would apply in both instances in equal parts even in the case of government-approved monitoring.
The bottom line is that Clegg’s case is a sound one. There is an apparent need to have the government release transparent comprehensive reports annually, detailing the operations conducted by all the various agencies, committees and commissioners.
The Labour party too has started to realize the detriments and shortcomings of unwarranted indiscriminate mass surveillance and has put some work into improving their position on the matter. For this, they should be applauded.
The Tories still seem to remain unconvinced on the matter, but the idea behind the project has already caught momentum and their stance is bound to change eventually given enough time and encouragement. To help in the matter, there’s a myriad of public figures, civil groups, reporters, not to mention the public at large, that all wish to see the change occur and their personal rights restored. Not only is mass surveillance immoral, it has also proven to be inefficient and ineffective. It’s a waste of both precious resources and time.
An independent reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC stated that the terrorist threat has been blown out of proportion in order to propagate political, commercial or corporate agendas. Fear mongering and overly imaginative claims and allegations must not be used to hinder the privacy and security debate.
As it stands, the aforementioned issue has not had the treatment it warrants in parliament. But the fight continues. People’s rights concerning freedom of expression, speech, association and freedom to vote freely, are of paramount importance for the Liberal Democrats, as their constitution underlines.
Parliament needs to shift gears and be made to understand that the issue at hand requires that them to be at the forefront of the debate.
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