The annual review of terror laws by Lord Carlile has highlighted a few issues that many will be aware of even if not personally affected by them. Erosion of civil liberties is becoming more and more of a hot political potato with the growing use abuse of terror laws for dealing with minor issues. The escalation of this phenomenon has become increasingly blatant in recent years with councils spying on bin owners, police preventing photographs being taken of officers and in the latest revelation – police using stop and search powers to keep racial statistics balanced.

Earlier this year it was found that many councils were using powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to spy on people committing minor offences such as fly-tipping, failing to pick up dog mess, and littering. Ridiculous. More recently, following the implementation in February of Section 58A of the Counter-Terrorism Act which bans photography of police that could be useful to terrorists, the police have been attempting to use it to ban photography of themselves full stop! Wonder why? In his annual review of anti-terror laws, Lord Carlile said: ‘It should be emphasised that photography of the police by the media or amateurs remains as  legitimate as before, unless the photograph is likely to be of use to a terrorist. This is a high bar.’

So whilst many of our councils have begun to model themselves on the Stazi, and the police have been attempting to avoid the inevitable scrutiny that mobile phone footage provides (think recent protests), the Guardian reported yesterday that thousands of people are now being stopped and searched by police under their counter-­terrorism powers – simply to ­provide a racial balance in official statistics. Lord Carlile said in his annual report that he had "ample anecdotal evidence" of it happening, adding that such a practice was "totally wrong" and constituted an invasion of civil liberties. Really, we though the whole twisted reality of big brother was just a tacky TV show.