Lord Hargreaves
Joined: 05 Oct 2004
Posts: 6783
Location: Aberystwyth University
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| Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 10:20 am Post subject: MP phone taps! |
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While the USA grapples with the tough issue of whether the President can wiretap US citizens when terrorists call them up from overseas, the UK wants to wiretap members of parliament, in a seeming attempt to one-up Mr Bush.
Quote: The Cabinet is considering allowing the tapping of MPs' telephones, Defence Secretary John Reid has acknowledged.
The covert surveillance has been banned for 40 years under a convention known as the Wilson Doctrine.
Mr Reid told ITV1's Dimbleby that the proposal to lift the ban was suggested by the Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Swinton Thomas.
But the Liberal Democrats' Norman Baker said MPs were entitled to protection from the monitoring of phone calls.
"I think in a democracy it's extremely important that members of Parliament can operate without the suspicion that what they say on the telephone can be collected by the security services and relayed to the government," he told BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House.
"And there can be no guarantee if MPs are subject to phone-tapping that they won't have information passed on for political reasons to the government of the day".
BBC News
Now, with foreign wiretapping, I can see the legitimate reasons why a government may want to do this. As Bush said in typically blunt fashion: "If a member of Al-Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why". Seems fair enough, although why you can't get a warrant for that is slightly beyond me.
But with this situation, I can't even understand the thinking behind the proposal. Exactly what good will wiretapping MPs do? Whats the point? Can the government not even be bothered to make excuses for doing dumb things now?
Like the Liberal Democrat spokesman said, all I can imagine with this is "Legalised Watergate". Its bound to happen. Bizarre. Quite frankly this is a bit scary |
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