Report into MP bugging: MP was bugged, no laws broken

They know what you did last summer

So now dear MPs you know that Wilson Doctrine isn't applied to anything but phone and email conversations monitored by the spooks.... and not to the ones monitored by the MET on behalf of the spooks. (Which presumably is why they were monitoring terrorist suspect in jail? Presumably that information was passed back to the spooks, which means that invasive spying on MPs can be done simply by asking the MET to do it.).

And certainly not to your call records, cell locations (i.e. you position at a given time) any of the myriad of transaction meta data, e.g. your web surfing records, your email header etc. aren't protected, so that nice man in the department run by your opponent can simply ask for that without even a court order, just like the rest of us.

Heck, face to face conversations in public places are fair game, even private conversations in closed rooms of government building are fair game.

Better not make too much of a fuss. You might find Murdoch receives details of those fetish web sites you've been visiting... are you up for an erection or up for reelection?

What? Did you think UK had due process and checks and balances??? Where have you been?

Brown changed the rules last summer

It seems that Gorden Brown changed the Willson Doctrine last summer to exempt the police.

So we know now who to blame for this mess.

What goes around, comes around and slaps you in the face

Our Boys-in-Blue have been developed into the government's own unaccountable, paramilitary, enforcement attack dogs. They now create national law enforcement policy independently of the elected process in many instances.

The thing with dogs is that they may turn around and bite you.

It was not smart to have messed with their pay agreement. Even loyal dogs can go feral.

Big Brother is now here with us and watches us, all for our own good, naturally.

WASPs love to queue

What is it about the WASPs? Terrified, spying on everyone, yearning for empire. Be more French, or even German. Why doesn't the MP unload a truckload of sheep into Parliament or boot Gordon Brown in the nuts.

Mandarin clears government and police outrage - shock horror!

I'm so surprised by this finding I might need to lie down for a while in a dimly lit room.

Hoop jumping

You would thought that either an MP could or could not be bugged by the state.

Time for the abolishment of those people in MI5, if the police can do the job better, what use are they ?

Long Day

It must have been a long day: I keep parsing the headline as "MP Was Buggered".

@ the "Be Grateful" AC

The point is rather that we are supposed to be free and democratic societies and we are a better place for being so. As opposed to all these nasty brutish totalitarian citizen abusing governments. I for one believe that our freedoms is what made democracies more successful than totalitarian governments the world over (barring those who hit a natural resource jackpot).

One more thing, if you look at the leading causes of death worldwide (as according to the WHO's "The world health report 2004") terrorism doesn't even merit an entry ("War" ranks 60 out of the 79 causes listed). However for some reason terrorism is suddenly the prime threat against the civilised world and billions of $, £ etc have to be deployed to fight it, the Executive branches of governments and spooks the world over have expanded their powers massively while reducing the amount of oversight the public have over their activities. While all this happens there are people like you happily cheering them on...

Re:Be Grateful...

But it is pointless. It doesn't STOP the bad stuff happening no matter how much we complain.

So what's the point of free speech if it has no effect? If it is ignored?

None.

UNaccountable?

"Our Boys-in-Blue have been developed into the government's own unaccountable, paramilitary, enforcement attack dogs."

And yet every report and commentator says they're more scrutinized than ever, spending more time "accounting" for what they do than actually doing it.

With great power comes a great big stack of paperwork, I mean, responsibility.

C'mon - it was a suspected Terrorist who was bugged!

And why shouldn't our wonderful police bug a suspected terrorist?

Which hat did Mr Khan have on when he made the visit - Lawyer, MP, friend or Imman?

I suspect recently convicted murderer Steve Wright may find it more difficult to get his local MP to visit him.

@Chris Totten

An MP is like a congressman, you can't allow conversations with elected representatives to be eavesdropped by the spooks, never mind regular plod. Except you can. A few years ago there was a wonderful piece of legislation passed in which allowed the cops and the spooks to "work together to blah blah blah". This effectively gave the cops the abilities of the spooks and the spooks the abilities of the cops. This is a very very bad thing indeed and effectively undoes a system of checks and balances designed to protect civil liberties.

@grateful coward "It's interesting that the people who complain are generally (directly or indirectly) from countries where similar rights and privileges don't (or hardly) even exist."

How can someone be from a country indirectly?

Re: Dev

For accountability you need at least some sort of consequence for fucking up, not just writing lots of forms. If you don't even get sacked for pinning an unarmed innocent man down and shooting him dead, then clearly accountability is a façade, and not even a very convincing one.

Accountability

Is not about making anyone suffer for a cock up, it's just that some one wants to know how much it cost in terms of overtime, bullets, doughnuts etc.