If someone came up to you in the street and asked you for personal information or to look at your smartphone screen to see your latest text messages what would you do? I suspect lots of colourful language would follow and in some cases a minor scuffle or two.
Well take a peek at the latest video from human right’s group Liberty who reckon the government now want even more power to spy on us and are planning to enable themselves to do so.
Now, the Home Office themselves would never allow people to walk into their offices and demand to know all that is going on behind its doors. You can see in the video what happens when the presenter (comedian Olivia Lee) tries to do exactly that. The Head of Security is called and a Policewoman intervenes until eventually Olivia is shown the door.
So why should we allow the government to collect every minute detail of our digital lives in the name of protecting our security? Well if enough of us get together and makes our voices heard maybe we can head the government off. We have one of the most extensive and intrusive surveillance networks in the world already. The government have enough powers to protect us. We have to let them know that we don’t want their Investigatory Powers Bill to become law.
Bella Sankey, Policy Director for Liberty, said: “As this film shows, people in Britain value their personal privacy – even Home Office staff are unwilling to reveal their phone records for no good reason. But the Government’s latest Snoopers’ Charter would make everyone’s online activity available to the authorities to speculatively trawl through without good reason and without us ever being told.”
If you’re keen to take part you can sign up to Liberty’s No #SnoopersCharter campaign here.
Find out more at www.nosnooperscharter.org.uk