A bill which could have given the Government power to snoop on every phonecall, email and text message made in Britain will not be in the Queen’s Speech next month, according to the Telegraph.
This will be seen by many as good news for journalists – as the new law would have raised concerns that it could be used to find confidential journalistic sources and thus undermine press freedom.
The new legislation will only be proposed after a three-month consultation period beginning in January, the Telegraph reports.
News of the proposed “Big Brother database” was broken by The Independent last month.
The protection of journalists’ sources has already been significantly weakened in UK law by the Terrorism Act.
In July Greater Manchester Police used the act to force freelance journalist Shiv Malik to hand over confidential notes of his conversations with a suspected terrorist.
UPDATE…
As pointed out by a comment below, news of the proposed Big Brother database was actually reported by The Times back in May – and not broken by the Independent.
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