The government proposed a fundamental shift in the relationship between citizens, the internet and the state in its 300-page draft investigatory powers bill. Under the law, now christened the snooper’s charter, almost every digital communication and movement would be logged by telecommunications companies, intercepted by intelligence agencies and subject to scrutiny. But when the government introduced the bill into parliament on Tuesday, it demonstrated not only its disregard for privacy but its contempt for that other key pillar of British society: democracy.

Snooper's charter: wider police powers to hack phones and access web history Read more

The bill contains some of the most intrusive surveillance powers imaginable, including some that are not currently found in any other country in the world. Cyber security is to be sacrificed at the altar of “national security”: government hacking would become legal, bulk datasets collected and mined, and encrypted services subject to state restrictions.

It will come as little surprise to many Britons that the government has contempt for privacy. In the last decade we have seen the roll-out of mandatory data retention and the secret expansion of digital surveillance, revealed only because of the actions of an American whistleblower. Prior to the publication of the draft bill, in November 2015, it had been 15 years since parliament had modernised its surveillance powers, and an overhaul of police and intelligence authorities with regards to the internet was sorely needed. Yet suddenly, with the publication of the draft text, the government decided that time was of the essence. When a joint committee was appointed to scrutinise the bill, it had 52 working days to consider the oral evidence of 59 people and 1,500 pages of written submissions. Two other committees also conducted rapid reviews of the dense legislation during the three short months between the publication of the Draft Bill and its introduction into Parliament.

All three found the draft bill, at best, problematic; the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) issued a scathing critique, which cut particularly deep given the Committee’s historically close relationship to the security services. The ISC found the lack of emphasis on privacy protections “surprising” and cautioning the government against using terrorist attacks as an excuse to override civil liberties. It recommended the government did away with invasive powers such as bulk hacking and introduced a new section of the Bill specifically dedicated to protecting privacy.

Other voices, vital to the democratic debate, also criticised the Draft Bill: human rights organisations and civil society argued that by legitimising “bulk interception” powers the bill would open the door for indiscriminate and disproportionate surveillance; key industry players such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo! spoke out against provisions that could be used to weaken security and undermine encryption, and cautioned that Britain’s attempt to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction on US companies could legitimise the “lawless and heavy-handed practice[s]” of other less democratic nations. The Law Society and Bar Council raised the prospect that the draft bill would undermine the confidentiality of legal communications, and the National Union of Journalists raised the chilling effect on media and the risk posed to the protection of journalists’ sources.

In a final attempt to talk sense into the government, on Tuesday morning more than 100 MPs, experts and organisations published a letter calling on the government to take full account of the extensive criticism offered by the committees, and refrain from rushing the bill through parliament. Hours later the home secretary introduced the Investigatory Powers bill into the Commons.. A second reading is expected on 14 March and a final vote by the end of April.

Technology firms' hopes dashed by 'cosmetic tweaks' to snooper's charter Read more

If the rapid process of scrutiny isn’t a sufficiently clear demonstration of the government’s derision, its response to the committees’ recommendations bring the Home Office’s contempt for the democratic process into sharp relief. A scant handful of minor critiques have been reflected. There has been no response to the widespread criticism of the restricted powers granted to judicial commissioners. In response to demands by the joint committee and the ISC for demonstrable, evidence-based justifications for vastly intrusive bulk powers, the Home Office has provided general case studies with few details, unaccompanied by any sense of the scale and effect of such measures. The ISC’s advice that the government withdraw authorities related to bulk equipment interference powers and bulk dataset acquisition has been ignored.

With deeply regrettable flippancy, the Home Office has responded to the ISC’s recommendation that the draft legislation contain “an entirely new part dedicated to overarching privacy protections [to ensure that] privacy is an integral part of the legislation rather than an add-on” by adding one word to the bill – the word “privacy” to the title of part one, previously “general protections”.

Should the bill be brought into law, its impact on the human rights of the British people would be monumental. The government has shown an audacious disregard for these consequences. That privacy will be eroded as a result of a process that flaunts democratic tenets serves only to add insult to injury. It is not only democracy that the government has treated with contempt but the British public.