This afternoon at 4.30 I have been invited to give evidence in Parliament to the Joint Select Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill.

This follows evidence I gave on the technical aspects of the bill to the Science and Technology Committee on November 10th; see video and documents. Of particular interest may be comments by my Cambridge colleague Richard Clayton; an analysis by my UCL colleague George Danezis; the ORG wiki; and finally the text of the bill itself.

While the USA has reacted to the Snowden revelations by restraining the NSA in various ways, the UK reaction appears to be the opposite. Do we really want to follow countries like China, Russia and Kazakhstan, and take the risk that we’ll tip countries like Brazil and India into following our lead? If the Internet fragments into national islands, that will not only do grave harm to the world economy, but make life a lot harder for GCHQ too.