In this week’s issue, Fraser Nelson and Nick Cohen examine how police are using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to run wild in the public’s mobile phone records. Like many curtailments of British liberties, this started off in the name of fighting terrorism. It has now emerged that police forces used these anti-terror powers to obtain phone records from a number of journalists to work out who they were speaking to. Camilla Swift speaks to Fraser and Lord Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor, who was involved in enacting the original Ripa legislation. Have the police gone too far? And can we really trust them to use this legislation responsibly?
The conference season is finally over. But why so much Tory bashing at the Lib Dem conference? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman look at Nick Clegg’s tactics, and also review the winners and losers from the season.
And finally, vicious dogs. In this week’s issue, Justin Marozzi says he has spent years in war zones, but the
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