A step forwards and a step backwards for privacy?

The past two weeks have seen two interesting moves on surveillance laws and privacy. Following the Conservative party’s victory in the recent UK general election, David Cameron used the Queen’s speech to confirm plans to increase surveillance powers by introducing the Investigatory Powers Bill. Effectively, this will increase the power the police and GCHQ has to collect and retain data on everyone regardless of whether or not they are suspected of a crime. http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2410276/queens-speech-confirms-governments-surveillance-overhaul

In the meantime, the US Senate were unable to agree on terms for extending the Patriot Act. As Snowdon revealed, the Patriot Act was secretly being used to justify the NSA's collection of American phone metadata. Whilst the Patriot Act itself has not expired, certain conditions have expired, including the NSA’s bulk phone record collection and “roving wiretapping”, and the FBI’s power to track internet usage through business records. Senator Rand Paul, who has been at the centre of blocking reforms, has been accused of endangering US national security by letting these powers expire. This does not mean the end of US Government surveillance powers, but it does put a temporary block on some of the power the US Government has. This is probably only a temporary stall in the introduction of the USA Freedom Act, which is meant to replace parts of the Patriot Act. Is this a big deal? The Guardian thinks it is (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/nsa-us-surveillance-patriot-act-guide) claiming it to be the first roll back of NSA surveillance by Congress since 1978 as part of legislative reform following Edward Snowden’s revelations back in 2013.

But will these two moves actually make any difference? Cameron’s plans will certainly increase the UK Government’s surveillance powers. Cameron has been clear for a while now his stance against encryption. In the US, the expiration of certain Patriot Act conditions is only a temporary set-back as the USA Freedom act will shortly re-introduce the necessary powers for the Government and the NSA. What might be more interesting is whilst all this was happening, the United Nations released a report saying that free expression is a human right and that encryption should be allowed and mass surveillance restricted.  https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/28/united-nations-encryption-anonymity-surveillance/