Queen’s Speech 2012 : Even Independent Scotland’s internet & email will be spied on by UK Government online surveillance laws

THE Queen’s speech for 2012 has revealed the range of internet snooping laws and intrusions into daily live of all UK citizens which are to be brought into law by the increasingly hated Conservative-LibDem coalition Government at Westminster.

While some claim the spying charter for prying into the every day lives of everyone who lives in, visits for business or holidays in or even flies over the UK & uses UK based internet servers, will have safeguards from the engathered information being misused, most believe the plans, which an earlier Labour Government had to abandon after criticisms from the Conservatives, are measures now being boosted by the current UK ConDem Government to tackle dissent and protest against unpopular Government policies.

A Civil Rights campaigner speaking to Scottish Law Reporters branded the new spying powers as ‘draconian’. He also alleged the latest moves on internet spying were being put in place to legitimise the highly secretive & already stiff surveillance techniques used by the UK Government on all internet & email users.

An insider has tipped off the media over plans to retain surveillance data on “persons of interest” for an indefinite period, although how a person is defined as “a person of interest” appears to be left to the imagination of anyone with access to spying powers. “Persons of interest” currently include campaigners, those who write to their elected politicians, people in trouble with the Police, journalists, some doctors, scientists, people with a public profile and politicians who are not considered to act in the interests of the current Government.

Interestingly, web surveillance of foreign visitors to the UK is to be referred to in a case in the US Courts later this year, where an American businessman is to allege “commercial secrets from his firm’s email accounts were hacked & passed by a UK Government agency” to a competitor company in the UK.

GCHQ will of course, also be able to monitor all internet & email traffic in Scotland. It is thought the legislation will also be used in an attempt to clamp down on independence activists who campaign for an independent Scotland.

Queen's Speech: Internet monitoring plan to have 'strict safeguards'

Plans to make it easier for the police and intelligence agencies to monitor e-mails, phone calls and internet use have been unveiled, but with promises of "strict safeguards". The Draft Communications Bill would update existing procedures for allowing access to "vital" information. This includes phone numbers and e-mail addresses but not content of messages. Civil liberties groups said they were dismayed by the plan, which they described as a "snooper's charter". The issue has caused friction within the coalition amid criticism from some Lib Dem and Conservative MPs.

The government argues the law needs to keep pace with technological changes and enable the security services to confront changing threats to the UK. The proposed UK-wide legislation, which has been published in draft form, would seek to "maintain the ability" of the authorities "to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public". It would update the rules governing how information can be collected and retained by mobile and internet firms in a "lawful and efficient" manner and ensure it "remains available" to the authorities to protect the public.

At the moment basic information can be accessed by police, intelligence agencies or other public bodies without any external authorisation - simply by a senior official within the organisation signing the request off.

But security experts say existing laws date back to 2000 and they are not equipped to cover social media, Skype and other methods of communication. Ministers are stressing that the police and other bodies will not be allowed to look at the content of e-mails or text messages without a warrant, as is the case now.

Instead, access would be limited - as now - to details of when conversations took place, for how long and where someone was when they made a call. However, the police would be able to see which websites someone had visited.

The government have outlined a number of safeguards which they hope will allay fears about the plans. They include:
A 12-month limit on how long data can be retained
Measures to prevent unauthorised access
Strengthening independent oversight
Boosting the role of tribunals to consider complaints

But campaign group Liberty said the proposals threatened individual privacy and suggested the coalition had gone back on a pledge on coming to office to end the storage of web and e-mail records "without good reason".

"Two years ago, the coalition bound itself together with promises and action to protect our rights and freedoms," said its director Shami Chakrabarti.

"As the strains of governing in a recession begin to show, politicians of all parties should remember the values we are all supposed to share."

And former shadow home secretary David Davis, a frequent critic of the extension of state powers, said the proposals would be costly to implement and were "very similar" to the last Labour government's plans for a communications database dropped following Tory opposition.

He told MPs it would be "pretty straightforward" for terrorists to avoid scrutiny under the plans by using proxy servers and multiple phones. "We will create something which will not be effective against terrorism but which will be a general purpose surveillance on the entire nation."

The proposals sparked a row when they were first floated in April, with critics describing them as a "Big Brother" move.

Newspaper reports suggested GCHQ, the government's listening agency, would be authorised to monitor internet traffic in "real time" using so-called "black box" technology.

A spokesman for the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said the "case for this proposal still has to be made". "We shall expect to see strong and convincing safeguards and limitations to accompany the bill," he said in a statement.

Prime Minister David Cameron has said any gaps in security must be plugged and it is the government's responsibility to do everything they can to keep the country safe. And the plans were backed by Conservative MP Bob Stewart who said granting access to such information would be justified if it "saved lives".

And Lib Dem MP Martin Horwood said it should be possible to "strike a perfectly good balance" between protecting traditional freedoms and applying the principles of existing legislation to new technology to "prevent our security services falling behind".

BRITAIN 2012 : Individuals are guilty until proven innocent ? Hype of ‘lone gunman with a grudge’ spurs UK’s quest for total surveillance

THE prospect of fitting a camera & listening device in every room of every property, every street, every car, every place, everywhere in the entire UK may well be one of the dreams of the current ConDem Government and the UK’s every hungry surveillance apparatus (which coincidentally numbers politicians, senior police officers & members of the judiciary from around the UK including Scotland among its commercial investors), however the threat of individuals who don't react well to the politics of exclusion, fear, repression, intimidation or such like is never too far away, according to a BBC News article on what appears to be rising fears of “lone gunmen”,

One ‘security expert’ quoted in the article’s theory says “…the only way you can tackle the threat is constant surveillance," which appears to coincide with attempts to criminalise the entire population of Scotland, England & Wales & Northern Ireland, in an effort to maintain the pecking order from the rich & political classes down to the half starved cancer patient lying on a bed in hospital while a Government contracted ‘healthcare firm’ signs him up for a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ notice in order to save benefits payments the Government believe should be better spent on parties hosted at No 10 Downing Street..

An English based civil rights campaigner who is writing an article on the state v the public in these hard pressed times observed : “You can watch some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you cant watch all of the people all of the time, especially the ones who are wise to being watched, and those who tell no one what their intentions are.”

BBC News reports :

The spectre of the lone gunman

By Jon Kelly BBC News Magazine

Two hundred years ago, an assassin gunned down Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in the House of Commons. His death ushered in a threat that security services have struggled to deal with ever since - the lone gunman.

The killer stepped in front of the prime minister, blocking his path. Then John Bellingham stretched out his arm, pressed a pistol to the leader's chest and pulled the trigger.

Bellingham was a disgruntled merchant. The death of his victim, Spencer Perceval, on 11 May 1812 in the House of Commons was the last occasion on which a British premier was assassinated.

But the murder set a grim template over the following two centuries for a series of lone gunmen who attempted to further their own views by picking up a firearm and training it on their nation's ruler.

In the century after 1865, four US presidents died in such a manner. Although not technically a lone gunman, Gavrilo Princip altered the course of Western history by assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. It was an event that sparked World War I.

The lives of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, US civil rights leader Martin Luther King and Swedish premier Olaf Palme were all cut short by a gun-wielding individual, as was that of Indian leader and activist Mohandas Gandhi.

When John Bellingham marched into the House of Commons in 1812 to shoot Spencer Perceval through the heart, the killer was no stranger to trouble and disappointment.

His first business venture, a tin factory on London's Oxford St, failed. A spell working as a merchant broker in Russia saw him end up in a rat-infested prison following charges of insurance fraud. They were eventually dropped.

Bellingham became bankrupt as a result of the accusation, and spent six years in jail. When he eventually returned to the UK, he demanded compensation from the government but none was forthcoming.

In April 1812, as Bellingham pursued his campaign in London, a civil servant told him he was at liberty to take whatever measures he thought proper. Two days later he bought two high-calibre pistols and arranged for a tailor to add a hidden pocket inside his coat.

After visiting a watercolour exhibition on 11 May, he casually announced that he had business to attend to. He was seized immediately after the shooting, tried at the Old Bailey and executed on 18 May.

One of his distant descendants, Henry Bellingham, is currently a foreign office minister and MP for North West Norfolk.

Perceval was not, of course, the first ruler to die at the hands of an assassin. Shakespeare immortalised the conspiracy that led to the stabbing to death of Julius Caesar.

Numerous other emperors and kings met their deaths in a similar fashion. But they usually fell at the hands of someone with privileged access - a member of the inner circle.

Nor was Perceval the first leader to die from an assassin's gunshot. The first Earl of Moray, Scotland's regent, is thought by historians to be the first head of state to have been killed by a firearm, in 1570.

But Perceval's death came at a watershed moment. Advances in breech-loading and flintlock technology in the 18th and 19th Centuries made the task of assassination far easier.

Unlike in the days when Roman conspirators had to get close enough to Caesar to stab him to death, the advent of the rifle meant loyal bodyguards were no longer a guarantee of safety.

And Bellingham can, like Princip and John F Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, be seen as a dark manifestation of the age of the individual.

"Bellingham was quite an intense character, he was an obsessive," says historian Andro Linklater, author of Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die. "He craved respectability. He was wrong-headed but logical.

"It's a very modern personality type - that curiously cold, obsessive, self-obsessed view of the world."

In this vein it's possible to view the rise of the lone gunman - inspired by the 19th Century anarchist proto-terrorist doctrine of the "propaganda of the deed" - as a perverse counterpoint to the steady growth of democracy across the West during the same period.

Just as ordinary citizens were winning the right to make their voice heard by their rulers, so too deranged loners had an opportunity to target the most powerful in society thanks to the accuracy of the rifle.

As democratic elections made it important for leaders to be able to go out among their electorates, the rise of accurate, deadly firearms gave those same leaders pause for thought.

The likes of Bellingham and Oswald - and those categorised as "spree killers" like Anders Behring Breivik - have always had a key tactical advantage.

While terrorist networks and conspiracies can be infiltrated, the solitary gunman with a grudge cannot - and authorities face the challenge of spotting them in the first place.

According to former Special Branch counter-terrorist detective David Lowe, now an expert in crime and security at Liverpool John Moores University, this fact alone makes them, in several key respects, more dangerous. "If you don't have intelligence, the only way you can tackle the threat is constant surveillance," he warns. "It's all about trying to spot this individual - keeping a watching brief for that one person who isn't behaving as everyone else is. Ultimately, you need an element of luck."

Consequently, the fear that such individuals could strike at any time has remained widespread .

In the era of the lone assassin, politicians' capacity to interact with the public they are supposed to represent is curtailed by the requirements of security and surveillance - a phenomenon given no better expression than the "Popemobile", the bulletproof vehicle designed to shield the Pope from attack. This sense of unease is one that popular culture has proved adept at exploiting.

Assassination that lit the tinder paper
Police in Sarajevo arrest a man after a failed assassination attempt on the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand :
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie shot dead in their car on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo
Assassin Gavrilo Princip one of group of seven Bosnian Serbs, who wanted independence from Austria-Hungary
One of the group had made failed assassination attempt earlier in the day
Each assassin equipped with a cyanide pill
28 June national holiday for Serbs and tensions running high
Austria responds angrily, bringing Russia, France and Germany into the conflict.
Germany declares war on Russia, 1 August 1914.

Even more enduring is Frederick Forsyth's 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal, subsequently turned into a film starring Edward Fox as the mysterious Englishman hired to kill the French president. As he wrote the book, Forsyth envisioned readers would identify with his detective hero. But the author found, instead, the assassin's allure as a kind of anti-James Bond was far greater. "I thought I'd created a big, bad villain in the Jackal," Forsyth says. "But when it came out, of course, no-one wanted to know about the nice, soft, gentle policeman. Everybody watching the film is gunning for Edward Fox." The reality of gunmen like Oswald or Robert Kennedy's killer Sirhan Sirhan is far less glamorous. It can be hard to believe that these unremarkable people were able to accomplish the assassination of a closely guarded person.

Little wonder then that conspiracy theories about assassinations have been so enduring given the shockwaves they have inflicted. "You can see the attraction of a better explanation than some pathetic character like Oswald having killed the president," says Sir Adam Roberts, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University and president of the British Academy. "It's difficult to accept that history is chaotic."

If there is any consolation to be had, Roberts believes, it is the lack of success they have at fulfilling their stated goals. "I would say they almost never achieved their objectives," he says. "Gavrilo Princip started World War I, but he didn't intend to; he just wanted to kill an Archduke. He couldn't believe the mass carnage that had been caused by his act."

Lone gunmen, he adds, tend to share the mistaken belief that society's ills lie solely with the figurehead at the top. "In fact tyranny, or whatever form of government you have, usually has a broader social basis. The idea that one cleansing act of violence will transform the political landscape has been disproved time and time again because it has messier results."

It's not a conclusion Bellingham, who was executed a week after Perceval's assassination, lived long enough to draw. The aftershocks of the killing, however, are still being felt.

Scottish Government backs spying, infiltration of protest groups according to Justice Secretary

Well there’s one thing no one can accuse the SNP of being, and that's ‘not lacking behind Westminster in the surveillance stakes’, as Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill today confirmed during Holyrood question time in a question from Green MSP Patrick Harvie, that the SNP Scottish Government supports the use of Police forces to infiltrate protest & campaign groups by whatever means necessary.

Hot on the heals of Patrick Harvie’s questions, came the Conservative’s Justice Spokesman, Bill Aitken MSP, who seemed to go all Douglas Haggarty supportive on Kenny MacAskill, in an attempt to take the sting out of Patrick Harvie’s line.

Aitlen indulged in copious amounts of praise for Mr MacAskill’s support of Strathclyde Police’s attempted bribing of members of “Plane Stupid” .. while we note revelations emerge that many campaign & protest groups appear now to be infiltrated in similar ways .. (Phew, what a joke .. the Tories could do with a new Justice Spokesman in Scotland ! – Ed)

(Of course, spying is the right thing for the SNP to do on political opponents & journalists, right ? errm ? anyone ? – Ed again)

Watch the video here :

Kenny MacAskill receives some much needed ‘kissy kissy’ from Tory Bill Aitken on ‘lets bug, spy on political opponents & campaign groups’ policy

Surveillance Society : All UK email & internet traffic to be spied on & stored for a year

All data flowing from your pc on the internet, will now be stored and spied on in the UK from today, in the name of anti terror measures, reports Out-Law News.

Given most of the snooping done on the general population under RIPA & RIP(S)A legislation has been used so far to detect fly tipping or parents sending their children to schools outside their catchment area … it wont be long before we see similar headlines coming from the new arrangements .. (yes .. click on a map to dump a couch and the rozzers will be with you in a mouse-click ! – Ed)

Out-Law News reports :

Internet data to be stored from today

OUT-LAW News, 06/04/2009

Internet service providers will have to store details of web and email traffic and details of internet phone calls for 12 months from today as expanded European legislation comes into effect.

The European Parliament passed the Data Retention Directive in 2006 in response to terrorist bombings in London in 2005. It required phone companies to store records of where and when phone calls were made. Those rules have now been expanded to include logs of internet communications by the .

The content of emails and phone calls will not be recorded or kept, but the details of the communications, such as who was in touch with whom, when and for how long, will be stored.

The EU legislation allows countries to choose a retention period of between six and 24 months. The UK has chosen a period of 12 months.

Bodies which are covered by phone tap law the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) will be able to request a court order for the release of the data.

ISPs will be forced to retain data on what communications were made from which internet protocol (IP) address or phone number, what the destination of that communication was, and its duration.

In the case of mobile phone calls, the data to be retained will also include information on which cell within a network a call was made from. This will give authorities an indication of the user's location at the time of the call.

The addresses of web pages visited do not need to be stored under the new rules. For internet access, ISPs only need to store the dates and times of a user connecting to the internet and disconnecting; the internet protocol (IP) address allocated to the user; and the user ID of the customer.

In March, Home Office security minister Vernon Coaker told a Parliamentary committee that the Government is considering an extension to the rules to include communications sent via social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo. The Government will consult before introducing any new law, according to Coaker, and that consultation could address the retention of URLs visited by web users.

The extension of existing data retention laws has been controversial, and faced an unsuccessful court challenge by digital rights pressure group the Open Rights Group (ORG).

"This requirement, imposed on all EU states, is a serious erosion of our fundamental human right to privacy," said ORG executive director Jim Killock. "Privacy is recognised by European and British courts as a matter of right. The European Human Rights Convention states quite clearly that we have a right to a private life and correspondence, and the European Court of Human Rights has stated that traffic data is ‘an integral element in the communications made’."

The Home Office previously calculated that the cost of retaining all the records that need to be retained, including the newly added internet records, would be £30 million in capital costs and £16 million in operating costs over an eight-year period.

The Government is allowed but not required to repay communications companies the costs associated with data retention.

See: The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009

EU Parliament : Governments should publish surveillance register

The European Parliament says Governments should produce a register of all organisations that monitor internet use, among other recommendations reported by Out-Law.com News :

MEPs urge governments to produce surveillance register

OUT-LAW News, 02/04/2009

Governments should create a list of all organisations that track internet use and produce an annual report on internet surveillance, the European Parliament has said.

The Parliament also said that users' online activity should not be monitored in the fight against piracy.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted by a huge majority to adopt a policy statement on the freedoms citizens do and should have online. The statement calls on the European Commission and national governments to take action to protect free speech and halt the intrusion of criminals and industry into private communications.

"[We] urge the Member States to identify all entities which use Net Surveillance and to draw up publicly accessible annual reports on Net Surveillance ensuring legality, proportionality and transparency," said the statement.

MEPs said that governments should be aware of the problems that might arise as people's internet traffic is increasingly monitored for commercial purposes.

"[Governments should] recognise the danger of certain forms of Internet surveillance and control aimed also at tracking every 'digital' step of an individual, with the aim of providing a profile of the user and of assigning 'scores';" it said.

They should "make clear the fact that such techniques should always be assessed in terms of their necessity and their proportionality in the light of the objectives they aim to achieve; [and] emphasise also the need for an enhanced awareness and informed consent of users with respect to their e-activities involving the sharing of personal data."

The Parliament said that when it comes to ensuring that intellectual property rights are respected, Governments should make sure that the interests of business do not trump the rights of individuals.

In relation to IP rights they should be prohibiting "the systematic monitoring and surveillance of all users' activities on the Internet, and ensuring that the penalties are proportionate to the infringements committed," the resolution said.

"Within this context, [they should] also respect the freedom of expression and association of individual users and combat the incentives for cyber-violations of intellectual property rights, including certain excessive access restrictions placed by intellectual property holders themselves," it said.

The Parliament was concerned about the rights that internet users might be expected to give up in return for using online services. It said that governments should set limits on how much their privacy can be invaded in return for internet services.

"[Governments should] examine and prescribe limits to the 'consent' that can be requested of and extracted from users, whether by governments or by private companies, to relinquish part of their privacy, as there is a clear imbalance of negotiating power and of knowledge between individual users and such institutions," it said.

The resolution also called on governments to step up the protection of children from sexual predators and called on the European Commission to produce a policy to prevent cybercrime and identity theft.

See : The resolution

Surveillance Society : UK House of Lords ruling allows bugging of all lawyer-client & doctor-patient conversations

The House of Lords have ruled that RIPA, the Regulatory of Investigatory Powers Act which allows the Government and public bodies to spy on just about every facet of an individual’s life, can also extend to snooping on conversations between clients & their legal representatives.

This has been going on in Scotland for some time now, as we have reported in the past … (where are all the legal eagles who should be protesting against this ? – Ed)

Out-Law.com reports :

Lawyer-client privilege can't stop surveillance, says House of Lords

OUT-LAW News, 23/03/2009

The state is allowed to bug communication between lawyers and their clients, the House of Lords has said. The UK's highest court ruled that spy law the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) allows lawyers' conversations to be bugged.

Lawyers are allowed to withhold the details of communication with their clients from the police, prosecutors or courts. This long-established right is designed to allow a client to receive full and proper legal advice. Under legal professional privilege they can tell their lawyer the full facts of a situation without fear of the communications ending up as evidence against them.

RIPA is the law which governs secret surveillance, outlining what the state can and cannot do to obtain information.

Solicitor Manmohan Sandhu was charged at Antrim Magistrates' Court with incitement to murder and intending to pervert the course of justice. The evidence against Sandhu consisted of recordings of conversations he had with clients in a room in Antrim police station.

Sandhu claimed that it was against the law for police to record his discussions with his clients because of legal professional privilege. A Divisional Court backed his claim, but the case was appealed to the House of Lords.

Lord Carswell in the House of Lords said that RIPA does allow for the surveillance of privileged communications.

"In its natural and ordinary sense [RIPA] is capable of applying to privileged consultations and there is nothing in its wording which would operate to exclude them," he wrote in his ruling. "It seems to me unlikely that the possibility of RIPA applying to privileged consultations could have passed unnoticed [in Parliament]. On the contrary, it is an obvious application of the Act, yet no provision was put in to exclude them."

Lord Carswell said that legal professional privilege cannot be absolute, that it has to have exceptions. "If it were not possible to exercise covert surveillance of legal consultations where it is suspected on sufficiently strong grounds that the privilege was being abused, the law would confer an unjustified immunity on dishonest lawyers," he wrote.

"There may be other situations where it would be lawful to monitor privileged consultations, for example, if it is necessary to obtain information of an impending terrorist attack or to prevent the threatened killing of a child," said Lord Carswell. "The limits of such possible exceptions have not been defined and I shall not attempt to do so, but they could not exist if the rule against surveillance of privileged consultations were absolute."

Lord Carswell also said that the Code explaining RIPA suggests that the law does cover privileged communication.

"The Code makes detailed provision for obtaining authorisation for monitoring consultations covered by legal professional privilege," he said. "It was laid before and approved by Parliament, but no point appears to have been taken that RIPA did not cover such consultations. It would be surprising at least that no objection was made to the inclusion of those provisions in the Code if it was thought that Parliament had not intended that the consultations be covered by RIPA."

"Parliament intended that the covert surveillance provisions of RIPA should extend to the type of lawyer/client and doctor/patient consultations which are ordinarily protected by legal professional privilege," he said.

Because of the Divisional Court's initial finding that RIPA could not justify such surveillance, though, two of the Lords expressed concern that the Government had carried on regardless.

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers said that the court "made a finding of law against the Secretary of State. She chose not to appeal against that finding. In those circumstances it was not open to her to consider as a matter of policy whether to "take the steps necessary to remedy the concern identified by the Divisional Court". The position was simply that unless and until she took the appropriate steps she could not lawfully continue to carry out surveillance on legal consultations in prisons or police stations".

Lord Neuberger of Abbostbury also said that he was concerned at the apparently illegal survillance.

"Having decided not to appeal the Divisional Court's decision that surveillance of privileged and private consultations under the present regime is unlawful, the Secretary of State should have ensured that such surveillance did not take place or she should have promptly changed the regime so as to comply with the Divisional Court's decision," he said. "Unless no surveillance of privileged and private consultations has been going on for the past year in the United Kingdom (which appears most unlikely), this strongly suggests that the Government has been knowingly sanctioning illegal surveillance for more than a year. If that is indeed so, to describe such a state of affairs as "regrettable" strikes me as an understatement."

see the ruling : http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2009/15.html

Lawyers in a spin over 'routine' bugging claims

The legal profession throughout the UK has descended into frenzy over claims that Police routinely eavesdrop on interviews and meetings between lawyers & clients in Police stations, prisons etc ...

Given the level of surveillance in the UK these days, where just about everything is filmed, recorded, watched at some stage, the revelations do not strike a great surprise among many.

Now the wait is on for some action from the legal profession itself, which surely would be that of a lawyer or group of lawyers taking the Government to court over actual evidence of bugging ...

The Sunday Herald reports :

Top Scottish lawyers: we’re 'all being bugged'

By John Bynorth

Legal professionals say prisons, police stations and mobile phones are all targets for unapproved eavesdropping

SENIOR HUMAN rights lawyers and a leading QC claim that phone tapping of solicitors' legally-protected conversations with clients in jail is commonplace in Scotland.

The legal figures have told the Sunday Herald that police and customs are eavesdropping phone and face-to-face conversations with criminals in prisons and elsewhere, including police stations, on a regular basis UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw has launched an inquiry into allegations that Labour MP Sadiq Khan's conversations with a terrorist suspect who was a constituent were monitored in Woodhill Prison, Bedford.

It was claimed yesterday the practice was widespread and could lead to the release of violent offenders if it was proved that monitoring of conversations had taken place, sanctioned by Westminster ministers.

A whistleblower is alleged to have detailed knowledge'' of the Bedford sting and claimed prisoners, including Soham murderer Ian Huntley, had been targeted along with other terrorist suspects.

Despite a statement from the Justice Ministry that covert listening operations were a matter for the police in line with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, leading QC Gareth Peirce and shadow home secretary David Davis said the fresh allegations merited another inquiry.

Gerry Considine, president of the Glasgow Bar Association, said the Crown Office and the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency should give evidence to any such inquiry as he claimed the practice has been taking place for years''.

He said: I am aware of conversations, where I'm sure that I have been bugged, not just by the police, but also Customs and Excise where we are dealing with people accused of major drugs importations."

Leading advocate Paul McBride, QC, said: For a number of years now, many counsel and solicitors dealing with high profile or sensitive cases, have been suspicious that their private consultations in prison are being listened into by others illegally and that their mobile phones are also the subject of eavesdropping.

If this practice is in existence, it should be stopped immediately, as there is a perfectly legal way in which the police can apply to the courts or seek authorisation from the First Minister for phone tapping to take place."

John Scott, a human rights lawyer, said that some solicitors do not meet at certain police stations, including St Leonards in Edinburgh, for fear their conversations can be eavesdropped.

It wouldn't be terribly hard to listen in on the private interview area and many solicitors don't attempt to speak to their clients there," he said. In prisons, you are directed to rooms for meetings with clients and it wouldn't be impossible to bug those.'' Defence lawyer Aamer Anwar said: "I wasn't shocked that criminal lawyers are being bugged and I have been conscious this has been going on for a number of years, particularly in terrorism cases.

"If this happened in the US, there would be uproar, but it seems the UK government doesn't give a damn."

One Scottish-based lawyer was convinced his phone conversations with a client accused of dealing in drugs from Pakistan were being monitored after an English police force called him in for interview and made clear details that could only have come from tapped calls.

Sources close to First Minister Alex Salmond confirmed that he had not authorised phone tapping of criminal lawyers during interviews with their clients.

The Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency was not available to comment on the issue. Lothian and Borders Police could not comment on the allegations surrounding St Leonards police station.

MSP who censored public testimony at Justice Committee wants 'no bugging' rule at Holyrood

Its fine to censor or bug others, but not when the bugging targets you if you are a politician .... so Christine Grahame MSP, the ex-Justice 1 Committee Convener who famously censored the public from testifying before her Committee's "Regulation of the Legal Profession" inquiry, wants MSPS at Holyrood to enjoy the same 'rules' which apply to the Westminster Parliament, where MPs cannot be bugged ...

However, given the conduct of some of our MSPs who seem to get up to all sorts, whether its mortgage fiddling, expenses fiddling, or even fiddling on CCTV ... why should they be immune from the surveillance which is applied to every other citizen in the UK ...

The Herald reports :

Call for bugging ban to cover MSPs

MICHAEL SETTLE February 06 2008

Calls were made last night for the rules that ban MPs from being bugged to be applied to MSPs and members of the other devolved administrations.

The demands from politicians at Westminster, Edinburgh and Cardiff for the so-called Wilson Doctrine to be extended beyond the Commons came as the political heat in the bugging row increased significantly, with Gordon Brown being branded a "liar" by the Conservatives, who in turn were called on to apologise for their "dreadful" slur.

At Holyrood, Christine Grahame, the SNP MSP, led the calls for the doctrine to cover her and her parliamentary colleagues. She said: "The apparent abuses of power we have seen in England with the bugging of MPs, despite the Wilson Doctrine being in place, again highlights the difficulty facing MSPs who do not have the same parity as Westminster representatives."

It emerged that Green MSP Patrick Harvie has written to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, calling for any past bugging of MSPs since devolution in 1999 to be made public.

He, too, demanded an "absolute commitment" that the doctrine be extended to all British parliamentarians.

"The work done by MSPs, AMs, MLAs and MEPs is just as likely to be sensitive as that of MPs at Westminster and the same rules must apply," he insisted.

In Cardiff, Mike German, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, called on Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister, to seek an extension of the Wilson Doctrine so that it applied to AMs.

At Westminster, Pete Wishart, the SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire, also demanded "equality of treatment" and called for a new doctrine "for the 21st century, which takes into account the new constitutional arrangements and offers protection across the board" to all UK parliamentarians.

Earlier, the Prime Minister's spokesman asked if Mr Brown thought the Wilson Doctrine should apply to MSPs, replied: "It has traditionally referred to members of the UK Parliament."

Asked if the PM was happy for MSPs to be bugged, the spokesman added: "You are raising questions I don't know if there's any evidence to substantiate and, secondly, the issue here is the Wilson Doctrine."

Sir Christopher Rose, the Chief Surveillance Officer, has begun his investigation into claims that conversations between Sadiq Khan, Labour MP for Tooting in London, and his constituent Babar Ahmad, a terror suspect, were allegedly recorded while the two men talked at Woodhill Prison in Buckinghamshire. The American authorities want Mr Ahmad extradited on suspicion of terrorist activities.

Last night, there was yet another twist in the bugging saga when it was disclosed that Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, was informed two months ago about concerns that Mr Khan was visiting a terrorist suspect in prison. However, sources at the Ministry of Justice made clear the minister did not know of the claims that the MP's conversations were being recorded.

One said Mr Straw had simply dismissed the claims as an attempt to "smear" Mr Khan, who is a government whip in the Justice Ministry. "Clearly, had he known more information, he would have done exactly what he did on Saturday which was to announce an inquiry," said the source.

Nonetheless, the disclosure is likely to intensify pressure from the opposition parties for ministers to explain exactly what was known about the bugging allegations in Whitehall. The issue could well be raised today at Prime Minister's Questions.

Earlier, the political temperature rose when David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, claimed the disclosure that Mr Khan's conversations had been secretly recorded by police undermined assurances by Mr Brown that MPs were not bugged.

"It is a breach of a prime ministerial undertaking to Parliament and makes the Prime Minister a liar, basically," asserted the Tory front bencher. This led Harriet Harman, Commons Leader, to call on Mr Davis to apologise for "hurling insults" without justification.

Elsewhere, Mark Kearney, the ex-police sergeant, who admitted to bugging Mr Khan after claiming he had come under pressure from Scotland Yard, said his life was now in danger.