Councils told to stop snooping

STOP USING ANTI TERRORISM LAWS to catch ordinary people out on a bad day, UK's snooping local authorities have been told.

Locally-elected councils are spying on people and then rapping them for things like dropping litter or letting their dog poo on the pavement. Sir Simon Milton, chairman of the Local Government Association, said in a letter sent to every council in England that people were starting to wonder if officials were beginning to abuse their power.

Only last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that surveillance technology was bringing liberty to the British people by making them feel safer from the terrorist bogeyman. But petty officials used surveillance powers to check the phone and email records of nearly 1,000 people last year.

Poole Council in Dorset spied on a family for two weeks, even tailing their car, just to see if they had lied on their school application form.

Northampton council used anti-terrorist laws to film people who didn't clean their dog's doo-doo off the pavement. Posters in South London warn people they are being watched in case they drop cigarette buts on the floor. Even those surveillance instruments councils have put in without the help of anti-terror laws make Britain into a laughing stock.

Petty officials hiding behind CCTV cameras in a number of cities shout at people through loudspeakers when they see them dropping litter on the floor. Half of all British people are monitored by computer control systems at work. Sir Simon asked councils to respect that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) requires them to use their surveillance technology "proportionately" and only when "necessary".

Dr. David Murakami Wood, a leading surveillance boffin, told Sky News that RIPA allowed "little local officials with a James Bond-fixation to live out their fantasies at the expense of the public."

"Perhaps", said Sir Simon, councils' scrutiny committees should watch the watchers, and maybe even listen to complaints from the public. "Our advice is that, save in the most unusual and extreme of circumstances, it is inappropriate to use these powers for trivial matters," he said after consultation with the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS), the police and government.

"Specifically, we do not consider dog fouling or littering as matters which fall within the test of 'necessary and proportionate'," he said. He did think it proper, however, that councils used surveillance to catch people dumping rubbish, "rogue traders" or bodging tradesmen. µ