Clegg urged 'put security first'

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told radio listeners he was still opposed to the Communications Data Bill
14 June 2013

Senior Labour and Conservative figures have joined forces to demand the security services be granted extensive new internet monitoring powers.

In a letter to The Times the politicians - including four former home secretaries - warned "coalition niceties must not get in the way of giving our security services the capabilities they need to stay one step ahead of those that seek to destroy our society".

It came after the Deputy Prime Minister reaffirmed his objection to the Communications Data Bill, which he blocked from the Queen's Speech, saying it had "proved to be either disproportionate in my view or not workable".

He is opposed to plans to allow the security services access to up to a year's worth of records of online communications and internet browsing - though they would only be able to see the content of messages with ministerial approval.

"I think a much wider-ranging snooper's charter in which all the websites you visit ... would be recorded and we would be able to keep an eye on the traffic that comes from internet service providers in other parts of the world, I think those two things, which are the other bits that were proposed in the so-called snooper's charter, have proved to be either disproportionate in my view or not workable," he said on his LBC 97.3 radio phone-in.

But he was accused of putting giant internet firms above national security as critics - spurred by the killing of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich - continued demands for the legislation to be revived.

The letter to The Times was signed by four ex-home secretaries - Labour's Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Alan Johnson, and Conservative Lord Baker - as well as Tory former defence secretary Lord King, and Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of UK anti-terror laws.

"We find it odd that many critics of the Bill prefer to champion the rights of corporations over democratically accountable law enforcement agencies," they wrote. "When such a threat reveals itself, government has a duty to ensure they can do all they can to counter it. Far from being a 'snoopers' charter', as critics allege, the draft bill, seeks to match our crime fighting capabilities to the advances in technologies.

"The proposed Communications Data Bill does not want access to the content of our communications but does want to ensure that enough data is available in the aftermath of an attack to help investigators establish 'who, where and when' were involved in planning or supporting it."

Mr Straw said that if safeguards demanded by a cross-party committee were included in the legislation, there was "no particular reason" it could not be passed in the Commons with Labour support. He told the BBC: "He (Mr Clegg) needs to think about what is more important: supporting Google and Amazon and these other American behemoths; or supporting security and reassurance for the British people."

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