Britain’s intelligence agencies should continue to be allowed to collect bulk communication data, a major report on surveillance powers recommends today.
But it calls for the home secretary to be stripped of her power to authorise individual warrants allowing agencies to intercept the content of communications in all but cases relating to national security.
High court judges would be given a much more central role in surveillance by the state, including being alerted to requests for communication data on journalists, doctors and lawyers.
They would also be given the power to demand that communication companies hand over encrypted information that the security services cannot access.
But in a blow to the agencies, the report by David Anderson, QC, the government’s anti-terror watchdog, said the case