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Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We now have to wonder where Blair is going with this.

There are 3 issues here.

Firstly, there is no good reason why MPs should be protected against investigation for criminal activity. Phone tapping for criminal investigation needs to be authorised by a judge. The procedure should probably be the same, irrespective of whether the target of investigation is an MP or not; though perhaps an additional safeguard, as mentioned below, would be appropriate for MPs.

Secondly, there is good reason to protect MPs from state-originated eavesdropping on their legitimate political activities. Thus investigation by MI5 is different from investigation by the police, as MI5 investigations are not authorised and overseen by the (independent) judiciary.

Thirdly, there is no overriding reason for MPs to be assumed innocent, by position, from activities against the national security interest. Thus there is no good reason for investigation of this to be disallowed - subject only to protection against potential misuse raised in second point above.

As to the way forward, one possibility is that the Speaker of the House of Commons (for MPs) should be notified in advance of any such investigation (both national security and criminal), be kept fully briefed on the ongoing results of any investigation, and have the option of requiring cessation or notification of the MP concerned. There should be similar suitable protection for Members of the Lords, though it is less obvious there who would be a suitably indepenedent person.

I hope this helps.

Best regards

@ Nigel - we probably agree that there is no good reason why Electronic Intercepts should not be authorised through independent judicial warrants, for everyone, including MPs, but that is not the system we have now, whereby the investigating authorities basically self-authorise themselves, with the inadequate audit supervision of processes, rather than of individual cases, by the RIPA Commissioners, and perfunctory rubberstamping by the Home Secretary.

The Terrorism Bill 2005 amendments to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act seem set to pass into law , without any real scrutiny by either the Commons or the Lords. The Home Secretary will then be delegating even more of this process to unaccountable, faceless bureaucrats, instead of personally checking and signing them himself, at least for renewals of warrants or certificates. This applies not just specifically to Terrorism cases, but to all cases under RIPA.

Does the Wilson Doctrine also apply to Communications Traffic Data ?

Does the Wilson Doctrine also apply to Members of the Scottish Parliament, Members of the the Welsh Assembly, Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, United Kingdom Members of the European Parliament or even to non-UK Members of the European Parliament ?

Thanks for the correction, which got to me earlier from Guy Herbert over on Samizdata.

We do indeed agree that it would be much better if warrants were issued by our (independent) judiciary. For criminal matters this should be done. However, for matters of national security, there are (I believe) too many difficulties for warrant issue to be independent of central government.

Please let us disagree on that quietly for now, so that the particular issue concerning MPs is not muddied.

My revised view is:

Given no effective differentiation in approval etc between criminal and national security investigations, MPs should have protection against interception for potentially political purposes (actual, suspected or imagined). My thought remains that this should be by prior notification to the Speaker, and his option to render overt such continuing interception as he finds unjustified.

The rest of us will have to continue to rely on the good offices of the (independent) Interception of Communications Commisioner, whose address, interestingly enough, is given by you as c/o Home Office.

Despite likely contrary views here and elsewhere, I continue to see no adequate justification of MP's comminications being given blanket protection.

Best regards

Sir Swinton Thomas is rather publlcity shy and does not, for example have a website , unlike Sir Andrew Leggatt, his fellow RIPA Surveillance Commissioner.

However, since all of the RIPA Commissioners are established under Acts of Parliament (Regulation of investigatory Powers Act 2000 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994), they are nominally independent of the Home Office.

As either still serving or retired senior Judges, these Commissioners do like their own privacy and seem to distance themselves from the public as much as possible (apart from the Surveillance Commissioner, Sir Andrew Leggatt, who at least has a website, phone and email details)

In theory, the Interecption of Commucications Commissioner (and the other Commissioners) are Public Bodies, but not Central Government Departments, so he might actually have
to disclose some information (obviously not on particular cases), in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Even the USA has a Federal Intelligence Court system (admittedly one which President Bush seems to have sidestepped), and if Senior Judges are trusted sufficiently to actually hear terrorist or espionage court cases, in camera, if necessary, then there is no reason in principle why they cannot be the ones who authorise interception warrants even for intelligence investigations.

If the volume of such warrants is such that more people are needed, then more Senior Judges need to be appointed.

They should not simply rubberstamp any warrants which they are presented with, and they should report independently to Parliament, not to any politician such as the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister.