For Argyll is progressively logging the sequence of erosions of privacy and liberty which have been a marked feature of the political landscape for some time. The sum of the various actions paints an extremely worrying picture - and here’s the latest invasion.

Below the radar, the Home Office has made it legal for police, acting without a warrant, to hack into anyone’s computer - at home, at work, in a hotel room. This is known as ‘remote searching’. The material gathered from this licensed activity includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

The Home Office has done this by adopting a Brussels procedure agreed by the EU Council of Ministers. This will allow UK police to take advantage of a rarely used power for intrusive surveillance of private property without warrant.

Moreover, the strategy will allow French, German and other EU police forces to request British police to hack into specific UK computers and pass over any material gleaned.

Civil liberties groups and MPs, mainly from the opposition, describe the move as a dangerous extension of the surveillance state, driving one of a seemingly endless supply of a coaches and horses through privacy laws.

All it takes for a ‘remote search’ to be authorised is for a senior officer to say that he ‘believes’ that it is ‘proportionate’ and necessary to prevent or detect serious crime. Serious crime is defined as any offence attracting a jail sentence over three years.

Opposition MPs and civil liberties groups point to the lack of regulation of this surveillance and say that such intrusive powers require regulation by a new act of parliament and court warrants.

While there are legal safeguards for physically searching a suspect’s home, police undertaking this ‘remote search’ by computer hacking have no need to apply to a magistrates’ court for a warrant.

Shami Chakrabarti, Director of the human rights group, Liberty, says she will challenge the legal basis of the move, pointing out that: ‘These are very intrusive powers – as intrusive as someone busting down your door and coming into your home’.

Indeed, as For Argyll has recently reported, the UK Government is proposing to allow bailiffs in debt recovery cases to do just that - to enter a house by force (provided only that they have reason to believe that there is someone inside it) and physically to pin down any resident attempting to protect their property from seizure.

In respect of the new and actual right for ‘remote searching’ Shami Chakrabarti says:  ‘The public will want this to be controlled by new legislation and judicial authorisation. Without those safeguards it’s a devastating blow to any notion of personal privacy’.

You may not care about this. You may think it won’t affect you. There will be a time, not far away, when you will care and it will affect you - and it may be too late.

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