[tupilaq]

Whilst at first glance this doesn't look altogether fair, I can understand why its been done.

The government should not be able to use the tools of state to suppress legitimate parliamentary opposition. There would be nothing to stop the party in power using the law to specifically target opposing parties.

For the rest of us here in the UK, your traffic is already being collated and probably has been for some time.

[stevetrewick]

I think everyone can understand why it's been done. Because parliamentarians have looked at the legislation and come to the conclusion that it would infringe on what they believe to be their legitimate privileges.

It's just that they don't believe those same privileges should extend to everyone else.

Note the use of the word 'privileges' rather than rights, because once parliament starts making that distinction between groups that have them and groups that don't that's exactly what they become.

[amelius]

> The government should not be able to use the tools of state to suppress legitimate parliamentary opposition. There would be nothing to stop the party in power using the law to specifically target opposing parties.

Why not introduce a law that further decouples intelligence agencies and the government. It could be made mandatory that information released by agencies are released to all members of parliament. This way, the government gets more transparency, and the people also get more transparency indirectly.

Just my 2 pence.

[lostboys67]

That would require all MP's to be vetted :-)

[amelius]

We could start by disclosing only (detailed) meta-information.

Or we could choose 1 MP per party to be informed.

[toyg]

The Leader of the Opposition is already in Privy Council, which (I believe) means he'll get most of the security briefs he wants to. He should probably be in COBRA too, but I don't think that's the case at the moment.

[pjc50]

I'd like to see the government forced to give Special Branch info to Sinn Fein, that would be hilarious.

[Sean1708]

It can only be accessed with a warrant, so what are the politicians worried about? If they have nothing to hide, they should have nothing to fear.

[JshWright]

Why not go the other direction? All government business (emails, phone records, use of official computers, etc) should be public information. You can't blackmail someone with something everyone knows...

(Obvious exceptions would be necessary for things that are truly national security secrets, etc).

[zigzigzag]

In theory it is. That's what the FOIA does. Problem is there are lots of exemptions.