If you live in Britain, it is vitally important that you contact your MP, before Monday, and ensure that they are going to vote against the Coroners and Justice Bill. Put simply, this bill allows ministers of the crown to, at whim, do anything they like with any data that they hold on private citizens. It literally means that for any reason at all, any data held by anyone on you, for any reason, can be handed to anyone else. Don’t want your stalkerish ex knowing your new address? Don’t want spammers being able to buy every detail of your personal life? Tough.

Oh, and one nice clause in there also allows for the creation of arbitrary new laws based on the data searched. This may not be the *intent* of the clause (though they’ve tried a couple of times to get similar things through) but it’s what the wording actually says. A minister could say “Right, I am now going to make it an offence to have ever said ‘fuck’ on a blog”, and everyone who had done that would retroactively have commited a crime.

I am absolutely certain that the Lib Dems will oppose this (though it’s still worth contacting your MPs about it) but the rest of you make your feelings known.

‘Liberal’ Conspiracy has more…