Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
[1] It was introduced by the Tony Blair Labour government ostensibly to take account of technological change such as the growth of the Internet and strong encryption.Critics claim that the spectres of terrorism, internet crime and paedophilia were used to push the act through and that there was little substantive debate in the House of Commons.[9] Critics such as Keith Vaz, the chairman of the House of Commons home affairs committee, have expressed concern that the act is being abused for "petty and vindictive" cases.[10] Similarly, Brian Binley, Member of Parliament (MP) for Northampton South, has urged councils to stop using the law, accusing them of acting like comic strip detective Dick Tracy.Another concern is that the Act requires sufficiently large UK internet service providers to install technical systems to assist law enforcement agencies with interception activity.In April 2008, it became known that council officials in Poole put three children and their parents under surveillance, at home and in their daily movements, to check whether they lived in a particular school catchment area.[26] The UK newspaper The Sun made an official written complaint to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to seek a public review of the London Metropolitan Police's use of anti-terror laws to obtain the phone records of Tom Newton Dunn, its political editor, in relation to its inquiry into the "Plebgate" affair.The Sun's complaint coincided with confirmation that the phone records of the news editor of the Mail on Sunday and one of its freelance journalists had also been obtained by Kent police force when they investigated Chris Huhne's speeding fraud.[26] Responding to The Sun's complaint Sir Paul Kennedy, the interception of communications commissioner, launched a full inquiry and urged Home Office ministers to accelerate the introduction of promised protections for journalists, lawyers and others who handle privileged information, including confidential helplines, from such police surveillance operations.[27] On 12 October 2014, the justice minister, Simon Hughes, confirmed on Sky News's Murnaghan programme that the UK government would reform RIPA to prevent the police using surveillance powers to discover journalists' sources.Hughes further said that if the police made an application to a court he would assume a journalist would be informed that the authorities were seeking to access his phone records.[32] A former Metropolitan Police officer, Jeremy Young, was jailed for 27 months for various offences including six counts of conspiracy to intercept communications unlawfully.In August 2009 it was announced that two people had been prosecuted and convicted for refusing to provide British authorities with their encryption keys, under Part III of the Act.