MI5 will get new powers to bug MPs - Furious cabinet revolt

MI5 will get new powers to bug MPs

Furious cabinet revolt as Blair gives green light for security services to spy on elected representatives By Francis Elliott, Whitehall Editor Published: 15 January 2006

Tony Blair is preparing to scrap a 40-year ban on tapping MPs' telephones, despite fierce Cabinet opposition, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

He is expected to formally announce to the Commons within weeks that MPs can no longer be sure that the security services and others will not intercept their communications.

Until now, successive administrations have pledged that there should be no tapping "whatsoever" of MPs' phones, and that they would be told if it was necessary to breach the ban. But that convention - known as the Wilson Doctrine, after Harold Wilson, the prime minister who introduced it - is to be abandoned in an expansion of MI5 powers following the London bombings.

MPs should be treated in the same way as other citizens and will be given the same safeguards against wrongful tapping, the Prime Minister will say. The decision provoked a furious row in the Cabinet just before Christmas, when the Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, voiced his opposition.

His outburst surprised other ministers, since he is seen as one of Mr Blair's closest allies and not known for his support for civil liberties. "Reid demanded to know why on earth we were going down this route," said one government colleague. "It was all the more surprising since you would have thought the MoD is one of the departments most in favour of increased surveillance powers."

SNIP

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article338691.ece



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in cahoots? :sarcasm:
Everyone needs to get good and angry ASAP!

I think are well at work within our own junta and its lapdog Congress.

These kind of measures also point to guilt for serious crimes--even beyond what is already plain to see, the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq, and the torture of many more. Guilt for crimes that we don't know about yet--and the need to cover them up. I'm thinking of the death of David Kelly--the insider British WMD expert whose mysterious death occurred four days after the Plame outing. And who knows what else?

The British people--who were/are even more against the Iraq war than the American people (Brits--oh, 70%-80% opposed, compared to our 60%-70% opposed)--seem as helpless as we are to prevent the Nazification of their government. They don't have the excuse of Diebold and ES&S (a bit more than an excuse here--a fascist coup). As far as I know, they have honest elections in England. Any Brits want to speak up? What's doing over there?

I know Blair lost 100 seats in Parliament last time round. Why hasn't the Blair government been ousted?

This is getting very, very bad.

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

This rules change does not mean that MI5 can do warrantless surveilance. This means that the UK is in essence adopting a position similar to current American law, where there is also no protection for legislators (that I know of.)