Ed Miliband rejects calls for revival of snooper’s charter after Paris attacks | Politics | The GuardianEd Miliband rejects calls for revival of snooper’s charter after Paris attacks | Politics | The Guardian










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Ed Miliband



Ed Miliband rejects calls for revival of snooper’s charter after Paris attacks









Labour leader to adopt ’cautious and considered’ approach to demands for increased surveillance by UK security agencies














Ed Miliband told the Andrew Marr Show he would not support new emergency legislation if it was modelled on the snooper’s charter. Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA




Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent


Sunday 11 January 2015 06.39 EST







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Ed Miliband has rejected calls for an immediate revival of the snooper’s charter in the UK in the wake of last week’s terror attacks in Paris.
As the Labour leader prepared to join David Cameron and other world leaders at the unity march in Paris, he said he would adopt a “cautious and considered” approach in answer to calls for increased surveillance powers for the intelligence agencies.
Miliband was speaking after Lord West of Spithead, the former security minister in Gordon Brown’s government, called for a revival of the data communications bill, known as the snooper’s charter.
Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, declined to offer support for the bill, proposed by the home secretary, Theresa May, that would give the police and security services the ability to track the email and internet use of UK citizens.
The coalition introduced emergency legislation last year – the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act – that obliges internet and phone companies to store personal communications data of their customers for 12 months and to give access to police. Labour supported the legislation on the grounds that a proper review was carried out by David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation.
Miliband made clear on Sunday that he would not support new emergency legislation if it was modelled on the snooper’s charter. He told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1: “We have got to be cautious and considered in these areas. We insisted, when some emergency legislation was passed last summer, that a proper review was done by the independent reviewer of terrorism David Anderson.
“Let us take a considered look at this, let us take a considered look at what is necessary for the country to keep us safe and maintain our liberties. On this issue of the security services we should always be looking at and making sure they have got proper resources being deployed properly to counter the threat we face.”
Miliband said he would seek to balance two interests: ensuring the security services had adequate powers and resources while ensuring that liberty was protected.
He said: “We have got to look at both areas. We have got to look at: do our intelligence services have the tools they need? But equally, do we have the proper oversight to guarantee the liberties of free citizens? After all, one of the things we want to protect most of all here is our freedoms. So we should defend our freedoms also making sure that the security services have what is necessary to counter that threat and defend that freedom.”
West told the same programme that it would be wrong to rush in legislation. But he criticised Clegg for forcing the government to abandon the data communications bill.
He said: “Normally we stop plots because we get a heads up because we know people are talking to each other. That is why that intercept is so important. Most of the plots we have stopped in this country because of that initially indicator. If they are talking then it is really difficult to do anything about it.
“I think we need to make sure that we don’t lose powers. The communications data bill was there to ensure we kept capabilities we had which are beginning to disappear. I think that needs to go through. I was very irked that it was removed by the deputy prime minister when it had all been agreed by all parties. That needs to be pushed through. We need to be very wary of doing a knee-jerk reaction with massive extra powers.”



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