Imagine how useful a wiretap would be if the phone company immediately notified the target. I'm not sure there's anything unreasonable about this amendment. S

Imagine how useful a wiretap would be if the phone company immediately notified the target. I'm not sure there's anything unreasonable about this amendment. Something similar is probably already the case for telephone and postal surveillance, and this was just a previous oversight in the law. I think there's a case for having a time-limit after which the surveillance must be disclosed, unless a judge thinks there's a very good reason not to for a specific case. I believe that's how this works in the US. Unfortunately, the UK's version of surveillance oversight is typically ministerial oversight, which is not very encouraging.