John Reid was right: the Home Office was “not fit for purpose”. We’ve now learnt it still isn’t. The NAO report into the huge Home Office muddle over deportation of foreign criminals is a textbook of persisting ineptitude which points the finger directly at the Home Secretary, Theresa May. It’s not as though she wasn’t warned. This issue brought down Charles Clarke in 2006 when it was revealed that on his watch the Home Office failed even to consider deportation of some of the 10,000 foreign prisoners who account for one-eighth of the inmates of jails in England and Wales. Continue reading
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Couldn’t make it up: Tribunal dealing with complaints against MI5/GCHQ is housed in Home Office!
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, passed in 2000, one of the most insidious Acts of Parliament in modern times, set up a tribunal with the power to investigate any complaints against MI5, MI6 or GCHQ, including complaints about surveillance activities of the police or any other public bodies. Very little at first was heard about this Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), and it was only the Snowden revelations that have brought to light how farcical those arrangements are and how contemptuous the Establishment is about the independence, integrity and effectiveness of the system for holding to account one of the most secret and potentially wayward powers within the State. Continue reading
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Security services take big step closer to full State surveillance
The government has quietly agreed to European measures that will open the gates to full-scale surveillance by the State. The current Communications and Data Bill now going through Parliament won’t, according to the Home Office, allow access to the content of phone calls, emails, texts or social media, but the government has at the same time now accepted new procedures proposed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) which will enable MI5/MI6 to intercept online communications. Continue reading
