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Theresa May should be stripped of her powers to authorise security agencies to pry on citizens’ data, campaigners and MPs urged yesterday.

They want judges rather than the Home Secretary to sign warrants giving spies permission to intrude on people’s privacy.

Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham called for the Government to “ensure that judges have the final say” on the most intrusive warrants.

The new Investigatory Powers Bill, due to be unveiled on Wednesday, comes after criticism of previous Tory plans dubbed the “snooper’s charter”.

Supporters say beefed-up powers are needed to tackle cyber crime such as hacking and online child sex abuse, as well as crack terrorists web communications.

(Image: Jeff J Mitchell)

New laws will not give the authorities powers to trawl through people’s internet browsing histories, Mrs May confirmed.

But they will allow agencies to see who has spoken to whom, and when.

She insisted there would be “proper regulation, proper oversight” of the new laws.

“I think there will be world-leading oversight arrangements,” she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

The plans are expected to be widely backed, but MPs and peers are concerned the Home Secretary will retain the right to approve requests to spy on people’s data.

More than 1,400 warrants authorising more intrusive measures cross the Home Secretary’s desk a year, Mrs May revealed.

The Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism laws David Anderson said judges should give authorisation, not the Home Secretary.

Civil rights campaigners yesterday led calls for Mrs May to give up her power to sign warrants.

(Image: Photoshot)

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti: “If the authorities need a judge’s warrant before they search my home, why not before the equal or greater intrusion of accessing my private communications?

“This happens all over the free world including in the US. Nothing short of this fundamental safeguard should comfort the public or Parliament that this much-anticipated new Bill is an improvement on the past.”

Shadow Home Office Minister and former Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC: “It would be far better if it was done by a judge, independent of any of the operations, independent of all the parties.

“It’s a classically judge test: is it necessary? Is it proportionate? Is it focused on the right person?”

Conservative MP David Davis , a former Shadow Home Secretary, warned: “It can’t be the policeman in the office next door or a spook in the office next door and it can’t be the Home Secretary. It’s got to be independent.”

And Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said it was “disappointing to see Theresa May still won’t commit to judicial authorisation”.

He added: “We will fight tooth and nail for it.​ The Executive signing off their own warrants has no place in a 21st Century democracy.”