The debate in the UK over privacy and security has restarted as the Conservative government proposes a new law on extending surveillance and adding safeguards.

Today I found a number of good commentaries; if you want the "spin" by some papers assisted by the intelligence agencies you will find them too about a week ago.

The Economist 'To MI5 with love':http://www.economist.com/news/britai...pies-mi5-love?

Jamie Bartlett concludes:
First, it’s not clear how long any measures will even work. Thanks in part to Snowden revelations, soon there will be a new generation of easy-to-use encryption services. The net will become more private and also more difficult to censor and monitor, and I think this might require a very real rethink in how we do intelligence.

And then there is a risk of serious long term damage to the economy, especially the digital economy, of monitoring too much, or forcing companies to install the equipment required to collect and store internet connection records. It’s not quite clear either how serious or damaging this might be, but I think it could be more than the government thinks. And as more of life goes online, we’ll need ever more powerful encryption, not less. This can save the police a fortune in reducing cybercrime, although will certainly make other types of policing more difficult.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...ts-or-not.html

Heather Brooke's pice is sub-titled:
The new surveillance bill renders the citizen transparent to the state, putting every one of us under suspicion. It would serve a tyranny well.
Link:http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...george-orwell?

Janet Daley in The Daily Telegraph is rather trenchant, as the title suggests:
Britain trusts its spies too much – even when they’re threatening our freedom
It is deeply worrying that the government could soon have the legal right to snoop on the private activities of all law-abiding citizens
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...r-freedom.html