RIPA was never designed for purely to fight terror - it was always designed to agglomerate all surveillance powers under one umbrella, including stuff like "put

RIPA was never designed for purely to fight terror - it was always designed to agglomerate all surveillance powers under one umbrella, including stuff like "putting up a covert camera to catch dog fowlers" or HRMC tapping your phone for serious tax avoidance investigation. All that has been written directly into the legislation since day 1.