My independent Investigatory Powers Act review was announced on 17 January. I am conducting the review together with a small strap-cleared team comprising Natasha Barnes, barrister at 1 Crown Office Row John Davies, a member of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Technology Advisory Panel. The scope of my review is determined by: The Home [...]
"National Security and the Law" was the subject of this year's Birkenhead Lecture. It contains a description and assessment of the current state of our law on counter-terrorism, hostile state activity and surveillance - and on the vital court and oversight mechanisms that apply to it. The lecture was delivered at Gray's Inn on [...]
I spoke on this subject to the Human Rights Law Association on 25 October, at a meeting held to consider the effect of the 13 September 2018 Big Brother Watch judgment of the first section of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. My slides, which focussed on the utility and lawfulness of bulk investigatory powers (sometimes referred [...]
This new working paper, Shades of Independent Review (draft updated April 2018) is the sequel to a 2014 article (reproduced by kind permission of Public Law) on the responsibilities and influence of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation (IRTL). The latest paper concentrates on changes to the functions of the IRTL in 2015, and on the potential influence of specially-commissioned reports [...]
This is not a blog post as such, but a compilation. I thought it might be useful to link to what I have had to say in the past several years on counter-terrorism, surveillance and countering extremism. Counter-Terrorism In this field, my successor Max Hill QC now holds the reins as Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation (@terrorwatchdog). His first reports were published [...]
The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 became law on 29 November, when it received Royal Assent. It is currently being brought into force in stages. This post, originally composed on 3 December 2016, is my big-picture reaction to the Act, which was influenced by my reports A Question of Trust (June 2015) and Report of Bulk Powers Review (August [...]
The report of my Bulk Powers Review, which I delivered to the Prime Minister on 7 August, was published to Parliament (in unaltered form, and without redactions or confidential annex) at 11 am today. Web and print versions of the report are on the gov.uk website, and a PDF copy of the report is here: Bulk Powers Review – final [...]
Introduction “A Question of Trust”, the report of my Investigatory Powers Review under DRIPA 2014 s7, was laid before Parliament today. It can be accessed below in print and web accessible versions, together with the accompanying press release and (so far as the authors were willing for it to be published) the evidence [...]
