The new powers are needed in investigations of benefit fraud rings, unhygienic slaughterhouses and pirate radio stations
							This plan to allow local councils and other organisations to check private telephone records amounts to a "snooper's charter"

We'll send your vote to the three major parties.

Home Office Minister Bob Ainsworth told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme: "It is in no way a snooper's charter... The reasons we are putting this in is to provide safeguards and guidance as to when people can get information and when they can't."

John Wadham, director of civil rights campaigners Liberty, wrote to the Daily Telegraph: "If you give such intrusive powers to so many people with so broad and vague a list of justifications, the evidence from history is that these powers will be abused."

©2000 VOTE.COM. All rights reserved. Patent Pending. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our Privacy Policy and view our Security Statement.