Jacqui Smith's Super Database and War on Democracy

It is imperative that the public be aware of Jacqui Smith's most dangerous plot against democracy. Whilst the government decided to drop plans to include the 'Interception Modernisation Programme' (IMP) from the Communications Data Bill late last year, it has been revealed that officials will still proceed with the project that plans to retain details of phone calls, text messages, emails and websites visited by Internet users for six years, thereby granting law enforcement agencies unprecedented and highly intrusive power.

Despite such a database being completely ineffective and easily circumvented by genuine organisers of major crimes, particularly through the use of encryption and even simpler methods, several billion pounds are to be spent on a system that will amass such a vast quantity of sensitive data that, with the current budget and timescale, any attempt to secure the database from outside interference will fail. Furthermore, recent examples of officials carelessly losing public data on trains should inform us that we cannot trust the current government, or any future government, with such information. The police have over-relied on and misused anti-terror legislation in the past. In 2005, 266 people were arrested under the 2000 Terrorism Act, but only 27 people were charged with offences under anti-terrorist laws. Their constant need for more and more powers will eventually lead to the government granting them the use of the IMP database for investigations concerning less serious crimes. Moreover, the system will be fraught with inaccuracies that will cause hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people to be wrongly presumed guilty through association.

Evidently, Jacqui Smith is the most oppressive and thoroughly anti-democratic Home Secretary of the modern era. Her subservience to certain minority groups has undermined our freedom of expression and the IMP plans not only attack our human right to privacy, but its evasion of all parliamentary scrutiny and potential opposition is a grave and authoritarian attack on Britain's commitment to deliberative democracy.