Jim from the Open Rights Group sez, “The UK’s Parliament hasn’t debated the consequences of the Edward Snowden revelations once: except to listen to pland reassurances right at the start, and to complain about the Guardian last week. Now Julian Huppert, Tom Watson and Dominic Raab have got a proper debate to open up the real questions about the extent and failure of oversight to prevent dragnet surveillance. If you’re the UK, please ask your MP to go to the debate and start asking the difficult questions”
This debate is a big chance to kick start our politicians into debating mass surveillance. For the debate to make a big difference we need lots of MPs to show up.
That will give us a better chance of eventuallygetting surveillance laws that respect our privacy.
Debates about the limits of surveillance and the oversight of intelligence agencies are being held in America and across Europe.
But British MPs have seemed reluctant to discuss mass surveillance by UK intelligence services. And so far the Government have only seemed worried about whether newspapers should have told us anything about the surveillance.
It is high time a substantial debate took place in the UK too. Make sure your MP is there on Thursday.
Is your MP debating surveillance in Parliament on Thursday?
(Disclosure: I co-founded the Open Rights Group and am proud to volunteer on its advisory committee)