>"And authorities can exploit a high-profile event, like a terrorist attack, to do just that." [the OP] //

The EFF always seem to go just that little bit too far and make their arguments silly. Do they really seek to convince us that the UK authorities are "exploiting" terrorist attacks to gain access to people's everyday inane communications?

People don't care about government seeing their communications because their communications aren't worth seeing.

If it saves one life for the a GCHQ analyst to see all my inane texts (SMS) then I'm absolutely fine with that [in practice of course it's more like, they check the metadata and decide to ignore me, then delete all the data after a year or two].

They also mention 'the legislation will let them do this and that' but they don't mention the restrictions, like needing warrants or court orders, or signed permissions from the Secretary of State, or whatever. The way it's couched is 'all your communications will be accessed whenever the gov want' - if there really aren't any preconditions then the EFF should have shouted about that more, if there are any then they appear to be being deceptive by not mentioning them.

We've enough politicians not being straight with us already, we don't need pressure groups doing the same.

Looking for example at S189 [1] of the IPB one sees that (though I only took a cursory look) the requirement for a telecoms/postal company to take action needs first a warrant from the court (warrants tend to require evidence of criminal activity, not just suspicion, but again I haven't looked in detail about the specifics here - the EFF lawyers presumably have). The the Secretary of State (SoS) needs to make consultations with relevant parties including the Technical Advisory Board and representatives of the manufacturers/service operators.

People are talking about infringement of HRA/ECHR or generally held moral rights but there is a balance between the right to privacy and the right for the populous to use the mechanisms of state to enable the proper investigation of criminal activity (and other non-beneficial actions). Whilst I have rights not to have my family life impinged on by the state they only extend so far as it is not necessary to limit those rights to protect my children, say, or prevent me committing crimes. I'm pretty much OK with that and think the majority of the populous - who are decried here as sheeple - are OK with the state having such powers _given the checks and balances built in to the legal system in the UK_.

If the government see people taking part in criminal activity and solicit a warrant from the court and in order to perform a search in that warrant the SoS finds there is sufficient suggestion of a national security issue, or significant loss of life, and on consultation with the affected companies they find that access to that information is possible with limited financial cost, then I consider that the SoS should be able to issue an order that the company cooperates with the legal system to enable appropriate officers to see the content that would otherwise be hidden.

[ 1 - See for example the S189 on p180 and the explanatory notes on pp 285+, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...]