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Snooper's charter: Nick Clegg dashes Tory hopes of swift agreement on bill Nick Clegg kills off Tory hopes of swift deal on revised 'snooper's charter'
(about 1 hour later)
Nick Clegg has indicated that an agreement on the latest version of the so-called "snooper's charter" is still some way off, dashing Conservative hopes that it will be ready for inclusion in next month's Queen's speech. Nick Clegg has vetoed Theresa May's rewritten 'web snooper's charter', killing off the home secretary's last remaining hopes of getting any communications data legislation in the Queen's speech.
The deputy prime minister sent the original snooper's charter legislation – the communications data bill – to monitor internet and social media use back to the drawing board, which led to Theresa May redrawing the draft bill. The Liberal Democrat leader told David Cameron and Theresa May on Wednesday that he could not support the home secretary's latest proposals to monitor internet and social media use because they were unworkable and disproportionate.
She is battling to get the new version included in the Queen's speech on 6 May but Clegg gave no indication that a compromise had been reached. The decision provoked delight within his party and among privacy campaigners: "This is truly an immense moment for any liberal, and every Liberal Democrat," said Julian Huppert, the party's backbench home affairs spokesman.
Asked on his weekly call-in programme on LBC radio, if a "middle ground" had been found, he said: "There is work that clearly needs to be done on issues where I think most people would reasonably think you do need to keep up [with] the technology … [But] the full-scale approach of basically saying you're going to scoop up and hold huge amounts of data for instance, literally recording every website that you visit and everybody visits so you've got this great treasure trove of data which you can then dip into if you need to, I don't think the British public would support that, I don't think it's in many ways workable and I don't think it's necessarily proportionate." "These plans were based on scant evidence, scaremongering and a disregard for our personal lives; treating everyone as a suspect and our online activity as 'fair game'," he said.
Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, simply tweeted: "The snooper's charter is dead, long live Clegg."
May has fought hard for the legislation, designed to fill a growing gap in the ability of the police and security services to access records of the web and social media activity of serious criminals and terrorists.
The deputy prime minister sent the original legislation – the draft communications data bill – back to the drawing board after insisting it was first scrutinised by a committee MPs and peers.
The committee's withering verdict described it as "overkill", complained it "trampled on the privacy of British citizens" and said its cost estimates were "fanciful and misleading". They did however agree that new legislation was needed to plug the gap caused by rapid changes in technology.
The revised proposals tabled by May offered significant concessions but did not include movement on access to blogs or everyone's history of their use of websites or social media, or on requiring British phone and internet companies to intercept data from overseas providers. They proved insufficient to persuade Clegg to sign up to them.
Both parties campaigned on general election promises to roll back the surveillance state and May's proposed legislation did not form part of the coalition agreement, so Clegg's veto is not necessarily a coalition-breaker.
The Lib Dem deputy prime minister announced the decision on his weekly LBC radio phone-in programme: "There is work that clearly needs to be done on issues where I think most people would reasonably think you do need to keep up [with] the technology," he said … "[But] the full-scale approach of basically saying you're going to scoop up and hold huge amounts of data for instance, literally recording every website that you visit and everybody visits so you've got this great treasure trove of data which you can then dip into if you need to, I don't think the British public would support that, I don't think it's in many ways workable and I don't think it's necessarily proportionate."
He said a blanket record of websites visited and communications on social media is "not going to happen with Liberal Democrats in government" and referred to the necessity of obtaining a balance between security and liberty.He said a blanket record of websites visited and communications on social media is "not going to happen with Liberal Democrats in government" and referred to the necessity of obtaining a balance between security and liberty.
It is understood that the home secretary's new proposals include significant concessions but no real movement on the power of the police to access individual internet and mobile phone histories. Clegg's only concession during the interview was that the government should look at whether there should be an IP address for every device, which police and security services have lobbied for. Further work is expected on how new legislation might be introduced to deal with the limited problem faced by the police in matching internet protocol addresses with individual mobile phones or computers.
Clegg's only concession during the interview was that the government should look at whether there should be an IP address for every device, which police and security services have lobbied for. The prime minister's spokesman was reluctant to be drawn on the developments, or whether legislation in this area would feature in the Queen's speech. He suggested discussions were ongoing, but appeared to acknowledge that a problem had developed. He said: "The reality of technological change has not gone away. These are sensitive issues around this and discussions are continuing on how progress is to be made."
The deputy prime minister is facing pressure on the issue from activists within his party angry at the leadership's decision to give the go-ahead to secret courts. They are already warning that they will not tolerate another assault on their party's reputation for protecting civil liberties.
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