With all the recent hoo-haa about loss of civil liberties and state interference in people’s private lives you would think local authorities might have reigned themselves in. Apparently not, the BBC reports that local authorities in England are still spying on suspected minor offenders despite being banned by law.

Government guidelines had to be introduced bringing local authorities to heel after it emerged that some had been using RIPA powers for offences such as dog fouling and putting bins out on the wrong day. This was despite the fact that since 2003 surveillance has been restricted to suspected breaches of criminal law.

However, a recent report indicates that some local authorities are still abusing the powers and the chief surveillance commissioner Sir Christopher Rose says the guidelines may not be enough to force them to change their ways. In the BBC’s report, he said: "If, for whatever reason, the government does not wish public authorities to use powers conferred by Parliament, the proper course, it seems to me, is for Parliament to remove those powers. " Quite. Or not give them in the first place – the Times reports that the proposed use of phone tapping evidence to secure convictions in terrorist and criminal trials might be a non-starter after “live testing” of the idea in mock courtroom trials had encountered major obstacles. Who should be thankful you might wonder?

And as if being spied on by your local authority/government wasn’t bad enough, revelations of alleged spying by Deutsche Bank on its managers have emerged. Targets of the surveillance are reported by the Wall Street Journal to include Gerald Hermann, a former board member suspected by the bank of leaking information, and Michael Bohndorf, an activist shareholder who was critical of the bank. The allegations are still under investigation. Source

What paranoid times we live in.

More council madness:

Council Sweet Wrapper Prosecution “most inappropriate set of proceedings I’ve personally ever, ever seen” says Judge