Tories push for more surveillance

Dominic Grieve, shadow home secretary

Tuesday, 12, Aug 2008 02:40

In a sign the Conservative party may be moving away from the civil liberties ideals of former shadow home secretary David Davis, the Tories have announced a push to make it easier for police to launch surveillance operations against non-terrorists.

New shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve wants to get rid of the system for authorising surveillance on suspected criminals, claiming one officer spent 13-and-a-half hours completing paper work so he could follow a burglar with previous convictions.

"It is not right that we charge our police with combating crime and disorder and then tie their hands behind their backs in the name of Whitehall bureaucracy," Mr Grieve said.

The plans suggest skipping the authorisation process by imposing an amendment on the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act.

"Revising the act's framework so that authorisation - and all the paperwork that goes with it - is not required for basic police work is just one way the party will cut red tape to free more police onto our streets," Mr Grieve continued.

That kind of change would open up an array of surveillance options to the police, including video or audio surveillance, thermal and X-ray imaging, the use of CCTV cameras, on-site watching of public locations and uniformed or plain-clothed patrols.

The party denies amendments to the act would result in an interference with people's privacy, saying the type of surveillance operation covered by the act could not "reasonably" be seen to constitute an invasion of privacy.

"The Conservatives' dalliance with liberalism is as dead as a dodo," responded Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne.

"This would turn into as much of a snoopers’ charter as local councils' surveillance powers for dog mess. We need to roll back the surveillance state, not give it new powers."