Snoopers bill overturned and Nick Clegg's comment

I hailed the news of the defeat of the Snoopers charter with great relief.

I know the counter argument for the measures were to combat terrorism etc but the bill went to far. Keeping tabs of how everyone used Social networks, the websites you visit, the people you have been emailing...

Just seems far too draconian. After all I do a lot of reading about the German Airforce and the Third Reich which could lead those who do not know my interests to misguidely peg me as a Nazi or racist.

Also, with the checks on emails I'd ask this; How would you feel about the government keeping tabs on who you send letters too?

Yes, there are paedophille websites and Terrorist/Extremist websites out there that need to be watched but can't the sites be moinitered for who goes there rather than everyones?

We should be free of action and state monitering UNTIL we do something wrong.

Any way, here is what Nick Clegg had to say to Lib Dem party members in an email.

Today I’ve made clear that the Liberal Democrats will not support what people have dubbed a “Snoopers’ Charter” – a new Government law which means there would be a record kept of every website you visit and details of who you communicate with on social media sites.

In the Coalition Agreement we committed to ‘ending the storage of email and internet records without good reason’, moving away from Labour’s database state. But this proposal wouldn’t meet that test: expanding the collection of personal data without a solid justification for doing so, and without allaying concerns about the workability of these changes.

There is always a careful balance to strike between security and individual liberty and I have always agreed that we must help our law enforcement agencies keep up with the challenge of policing in the internet age – like the technical issue of what to do when there are more mobile devices with not enough IP addresses to go round.

But the idea of a wider Bill didn’t get the balance right. It would have been neither proportionate nor workable and would not have enjoyed widespread support in Parliament or across the country at large.
The police provide an invaluable service and we should give them our support to get on with fighting crime at every level. But the proposals on the table were not the right solution and will not go ahead.