Skip to main content
Liberty battles to stop ‘illegal’ state snooping
Human Rights Group heads to High Court for landmark bid to halt ‘intrusive’ Investigatory Power Act

THE TORIES’ latest snooper's charter, allowing the bulk collection of personal data on such spurious grounds as “protecting public health,” is illegal and must be scrapped, the High Court heard today.

The Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) authorises web and phone companies to retain communications that provide a “comprehensive and intimate portrait of a person’s private life”  for access by the police and security agencies.

Civil rights group Liberty is bringing a crowd-funded legal challenge to the legality of the Act's data retention powers, arguing that they permit “significant intrusion” into British citizens’ rights to a private life and freedom of expression.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Women's rights campaigners in Westminster, London after taking part in a march from the Royal Courts of Justice calling for decriminalisation of abortion, June 17, 2023
International Women’s Day 2026 / 7 March 2026
7 March 2026

As peers prepare to debate reform of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi leads a bid to end the criminalisation of women who end pregnancies at home. LYNNE WALSH reports

FW Pomeroy's Statue of Justice stands atop the Central Criminal Court building, Old Bailey, London
Features / 9 August 2025
9 August 2025

ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the government’s proposals to further limit the right of citizens to trial by jury

NHS workers on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital, London, ahead of a march from the hospital to Trafalgar Square, May 1, 2023
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

The Bill addresses some exploitation but leaves trade unions heavily regulated, most workers without collective bargaining coverage, and fails to tackle the balance of power that enables constant mutation of bad practice, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC