Brian Paddick writes on efforts to protect our civil liberties
On Wednesday the Investigatory Powers Bill overcame its final Parliamentary hurdle before becoming law. In the end the issue that held it up for a while was press regulation, not the powers of the state to intrude into our privacy. In line with party policy, agreed at Lib Dem conference, we tabled dozens of amendments on significant issues that went to the very heart of the bill - while trivial Labour and Government amendments simply tinkered around the edges. Despite the Government's best efforts to close down the debate, we fought hard and achieved close and careful line-by-line scrutiny of the bill in the House of Lords - something we were not given the opportunity to do in the Commons.