UK is 'surveillance state'

The Liberal Democrats have said that Britain is now a "surveillance state" and that putting the Home Secretary in charge of authorising spying requests from the police is akin to "asking the fox to guard the hen house". The claims come after it was revealed that 500,000 requests were made by the authorities to access phone and email records in 2008. The report from the Interception of Communications Commissioner comes after a change in the law that obliges ISPs to keep records of all email correspondence. "Many of these operations carried out by the police and security services are necessary, but the sheer numbers are daunting," Liberal Democrat MP Chris Huhne told the BBC. "It cannot be a justified response to the problems we face in this country that the state is spying on half a million people a year," he continued. Tell us what you think of the new Web User beta website!