Typical stuff from the Labour authoritarian-brigade (Straw, Johnson), joined as usual by their Tory clones. I'm surprised to see a Lib Dem signatory, but then y

Typical stuff from the Labour authoritarian-brigade (Straw, Johnson), joined as usual by their Tory clones. I'm surprised to see a Lib Dem signatory, but then you can find a LD somewhere who'll sign up to anything (much like academics). The more disturbing thing is the political language in the letters, first accusing the Lib Dems of exploiting "coalition niceties," rather than standing up for person liberty and privacy, and secondly by trying to make it look like corporate interests: "We find it odd that many critics of the Bill prefer to champion the rights of corporations over democratically accountable law enforcement agencies." when in fact it's about individuals' privacy from state spying! Yes broadband companies said they didn't want to be responsible for logging all this data, but that's beside the point, really. This sort of rhetoric will chime dangerously well with the tabloid-reading public, on top of the arms race against criminals/terrorists/drug addicts/whoever the "bad guys" are today -- I'm worried it will be a politically effective tactic.