Council snoopers use terror powers to scour people's phone records

UK Daily Mail
Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Council snoopers using terror powers have delved into almost 1,000 peoples' phone records in a bid to probe anything from a bogus faith healer to dog smuggling.

Other bizarre investigations carried out under surveillance powers designed to track terrorists include a rogue pharmacist and unburied animal carcasses.

A survey of Big Brother spying Town Halls revealed that one council used the powers almost 100 times to monitor private phone calls and emails.

(Article continues below)

It comes just a month after it was revealed Poole Council in Dorset had spied on a family because it wrongly suspected the parents of abusing rules on school catchment areas.

In total councils looked into 936 people's private communications data - who they phoned and emailed - under the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in the 2006/2007 financial year.

A spokesman for civil rights group Liberty said: 'You can care about serious crime and terrorism without throwing away our personal privacy with a snoopers' charter.

'The law must be reformed to require sign-off by judges, not self-authorisation by over-zealous bureaucrats.'

Full article here.

Click here to discuss this story in our forum Yahoo! MyWeb Del.icio.us Digg Reddit Print Email This Page to: