Plans for private communications database are Orwellian

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 15th Oct 2008

Commenting on the Home Secretary's announcement of a consultation on plans for a giant communications database of email and voicemail messages, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

"The Government's Orwellian plans for a vast database of our private communications are deeply worrying. I hope that this consultation is not just a sham exercise to soft-soap an unsuspecting public.

"This Government has repeatedly shown that it cannot be trusted with sensitive data. There is little reason to think ministers will be any less slapdash with our phone and internet records.

"Ministers claim the database will only be used in terrorist cases, but there is now a long list of cases from the arrest of Walter Wolfgang for heckling at a Labour conference to the freezing of Icelandic assets where anti-terrorism law has been used for purposes for which it was not intended.

"Our experience of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act suggests these powers will soon be used to spy on people's children, pets and bins.

"These proposals are incompatible with a free country and a free people."