Lib Dem MPs Tim Farron and Julian Huppert explain why Britain needs a Digital Bill of Rights…
Momentum is a big force in politics; sometimes an unstoppable force. And this week we’ve seen momentum gathering pace for a change to our surveillance state.
On Tuesday, Nick Clegg set out his plans for change, backed up by a full Obama-style review of our outdated and woefully inadequate surveillance legislation and oversight bodies.
On Wednesday we hosted a lively surveillance discussion in Westminster with Alan Rusbridger, Editor-in-chief of the Guardian, MPs, peers, civil society groups and activists.
Last night, Big Brother Watch hosted a packed fringe event with us and Dr Jenny Woods, a LibDem surveillance activist who has been campaigning for changes to surveillance years before the Snowden revelations came to light.
And tomorrow, Conference gets to vote on the Digital Bill of Rights policy motion, the first and most comprehensive response to the surveillance state set out by any party. Make no mistake – we intend for this motion to be a core part of our manifesto and our programme for Government post-2015.
This is where you come in. If we’re going to continue the momentum for change, we need you to lend your voice. If you’re a voting rep, get behind this motion. If you’re a member, lobby your voting reps and MPs to support these necessary changes.
And if you’re someone just concerned about mass-surveillance, the digital economy, or privacy, lobby your local MP, join the civil liberties groups fighting for this cause, write to your local paper, or take to social media to call for change.
It is only through a concerted and united effort of people from across the whole political and social spectrum that we will end intrusive and unnecessary mass surveillance.
It’s not easy fighting for privacy and civil liberties, particularly given the authoritarian stance of both our coalition partners and of Labour. But the cracks are finally beginning to show; members of other parties are starting to raise their head above the parapets and joining our call to protect those we serve from this blatant disregard for their privacy.
Now is the time to hammer home our arguments and turn this momentum into real change, to send out a clear and strong message that our privacy and our rights cannot be sacrificed on the altar of national security. They are an indispensable part of our democracy and define who we are and what we stand for.
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4 Comments
now, in the the age of big data where the internet is wired into the very fabric of our daily life, is the time to consider a bill of digital rights.
that it should happen after the snowden leaks is useful if only for the way it will raise the matters political profile as a priority for government action.
Huppert and Farron are going to ride out and take back our internet freedoms from GCHQ and the NSA! They’re going ring Obama and tell him enough is enough, we’re closing GCHQ Bude and we’re going to ban the capture and transport of PRISM data! Yay! To quote the opening paragraph of the early day motion :
“This House notes the recent open statement signed by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and AOL calling for reform of government surveillance”
…notice anything suspicious? To me this represents the switch-over of power from the governments to the corporations and anyone that supports it is supporting a level of surveillance and personal profiling far beyond the accomplishments of any state. It would impede the state from using data to keep us safe, whilst allowing big business to continue to invade every area of our life.
We need to come up with a practical way of protecting the population whilst protecting their civil liberties; a nuanced argument from the centre ground that leaves aside the emotive marketing terms like “big brother” and “surveillance state” for a balance between privacy and security. Whilst we know the government(s) are big players in this arena, the real behemoth’s are still crawling out of the slime (Google or Apple, for example) and they will generate datasets the like of which we’ve never seen before. By setting up a commission to investigate only government surveillance you are creating the perfect situation for private technology companies – a crippled state that allows business to move unabated. I don’t wake up and log on to the government, but Google knows where I am and roughly what I’m doing – soon they’ll know a whole heap more and your recommendations would make their global hegemony assured. I find that very suspicious as you seem to be suggesting the UK government is the big problem here, whereas most of us know they couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. Google on the other hand have quite a track record with the usage of data – apparently they’re quite good at this sort of thing. Why is the rhetoric aimed at the government?
Whilst many facets of Snowden’s revelations were uncomfortable reading, I feel that Huppert and Farrons overtly simplistic explanation of the situation is just as dangerous as widespread surveillance. Whilst our attention is diverted away to focus on the evil, evil government we’re missing the real problem, and that’s big business and data. A grand plan to hand more of our privacy, liberty and economy to Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and AOL! Even more suspicious is that these are the very companies that are involved in dodging paying UK taxes and where our governments get the disputed data from. They are the origin of this issue – the government merely consumes and collates their data.
So Tim & Julian, why we should cripple our government in order to aid tax dodgers who collect the data that the government utilises?
Have you read the motion Chris?
Which bits did you disagree with?
Hi Daniel,
I’m glad you asked, let’s link to what we’re talking about : http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/869
As you can see, there’s not a lot of it, but I disagree with most of it in relation to its current scope (I might be happier if its principles were to be universally applied). The way it opens with a long list of corporations, then goes on to say that we need to follow the “five principles” these companies have identified in order to “limit government authority to collect users’ information, oversight and accountability, transparency about government demands, respecting the free flow of information, and avoiding conflicts among governments”.
Now take a look at this : https://www.reformgovernmentsurveillance.com
Is it normal practice for the most powerful organisations on earth to draft early day motions that seek to curtail the government, but not themselves? It seems we’re to stop big brother by following big brother’s simple 5 step plans to give it all the information (and thus the money and power), whilst crippling our own governments abilities to operate online. It assures us that government isn’t able to perform data collection to the extent the bill backers can, and so creates a mechanism by which governments are forced to purchase data from these companies. The corporations pay no tax, don’t have to operate in your country at all but can supply/sell data from where-ever they like, unencumbered, unlike the governments, which have to live by the five principles of the corporate internet!
So, Daniel, what did you make of it? Seems like I’m the only one bothered, maybe everyone else is happy to welcome their new corporate internet overlords! The government seem to barely know enough about me to get my name right on tax returns most years, but Google knows more about us than we know about ourselves. A possible solution here would be to make all of the rules that we’d apply to the government apply to the corporations, at which point they’d be up in arms because their entire business model couldn’t work under the rules they’ve drafted for governments! Removing flexibility from government as regards big data at a point where big data is still in its infancy seems to me pretty foolish and poorly timed for everyone apart from the biggest businesses on this planet.