Dear Mr Huppert

I'm sure that, given the politics of our Cambridge constituency, you've
been receiving a tonne of mail regarding the latest Orwellian scheme of
that nemesis of civil liberties, Theresa May - viz., the plan to bring
in legislation with the upcoming Queen's Speech to permit the
government on-demand access - without any warrant or any involvement of
a magistrate or overseer at all - to "pen register" records of email
and telephonic communications of anyone, anywhere in the UK, without
any demonstrated grounds to suspect wrongdoing.  Let me just add my
voice to that chorus.

Our Tory coalition partners ought to be up in arms about this plan not
only because of the affront to civil liberties but also beccause of the
added costs and complexities to business, and specifically to all
businesses that deal in provision of access to telecommunications. 
Complying with the proposed legislation would demand new hardware, new
record-keeping systems, and new staff to oversee the same - an unfunded
mandate of very great proportion indeed.

Even this business impact, though great, oughtn't to be the major
concern.  The major concern is, of course, what sort of community we
want our country to be:  Will we become our own worst enemy, as the
Americans have been doing with their "Patriot Act" and their utter lack
of serious data protection, or will we retain our essentially British
regard for the rights of the individual - a high regard written into
our laws and our history since 1215, and one that ought not so
cavalierly to be rubbished?

I'll own that there may be emergency circumtances in which the police
or intelligence services might find it crucial to be able to see such
records so as to avert a serious crime about to be committed.	Even in
such rare instances, though, access ought to be narrow, specific, and
reviewable after the fact by a magistrate.  If the police will still
need a warrant to see the actual content of communications, it oughtn't
to be much skin off their nose to obtain a warrant to see these "pen
register" details likewise.

Of course sometimes concession and compromise become necessary within
the context of a governing coalition - the irony in the case of this
issue, though, is that the Liberal Democrats and the Tories both were
on the opposite side of the issue when a similar plan was floated by
Labour only three years back!  Are we, then, supportive of such
draconian police measures only when we are the party (or rather one of
the parties) in power?	We will not always be in power, but if we allow
this law to be brought in, it will always be the law.

I implore you in this instance to break with our coalition and to
oppose the proposed legislation, as a matter of greatest urgency.

Kind regards
Matthew BELMONTE