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Leading article

Yes, let our spies spy – but not our bureaucrats

Theresa May’s Investigatory Powers Bill makes pitifully little effort to define when heavy surveillance powers may or may not be used

5 March 2016

9:00 AM

5 March 2016

9:00 AM

One of the marks of a good Home Secretary is a healthy wariness of those in authority who come begging for ever-greater powers. The former Labour Home Secretary Charles Clarke failed on that score. Just over a decade ago, the police persuaded him that they needed the freedom to lock up terror suspects for 90 days without trial.

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