State Surveillance and Social Democracy: Lessons after the Investigatory Powers Act 2016

Abstract

The adoption of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is a legislative landmark in a decades-long history of unlawful state overreach in surveillance, met with popular, political, and legal resistance. This chapter uses the Act as a case study to understand the implications of surveillance for social democracy and to question the extent to which social democrats have sought to prevent excessive state powers. It concludes that despite the consultative process by which the Act came about, social democrats did not engage sufficiently with it, while the Act itself threatens legal professional privilege, journalists’ sources, and trade unionists. These flaws with the legislation persist despite the Labour Party, in Opposition, declaring themselves satisfied with the law. The Act is an example of a failure of social democrats to concern themselves with civil liberties – a failure that may well be to their own detriment.