Britain’s spy agencies may be operating outside the law in the mass internet surveillance programmes uncovered by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to Lord Blencathra, the former Conservative Home Office minister who led a formal inquiry into the data communications bill.The Tory peer – David Maclean when he was an MP – said he felt “deeply, deeply uneasy” about programmes that allow the security services to examine the internet activities of British citizens without the consent of parliament.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/14/conservative-peer-spying-gchq-surveillance