The Investigatory Powers Bill will get its day in Parliament Wednesday amidst detractors’ dubbing the legislation the “snooper’s charter,” The New York Times reports. “The aim is to modernize and streamline the government’s surveillance powers, while trying to retain public confidence that the government will also protect the privacy of law-abiding citizens,” the report states, adding that this is the second, less brassy iteration of the original 2013 draft. Critics are still nonplussed. “A multitude of alternative powers, some of them without statutory safeguards, confuse the picture further,” said Britain’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation David Anderson in a 2014 Parliament-commissioned report on the potential legislation, arguing that, “this state of affairs is undemocratic, unnecessary and—in the long run—intolerable.” (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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