Surveillance State

Posted: September 6th, 2016

By Jim Killock

Since joining Open Rights Group in January 2009, Jim has led campaigns against three strikes and the Digital Economy Act, the company Phorm and its plans to snoop on UK users, and against pervasive government Internet surveillance. He is working on data protection and privacy issues, as well as helping ORG to grow in size and breadth. He was named as one of the 50 most influential people on IP issues by Managing IP in 2012. In the same year ORG won Liberty's Human Rights Campaigner of Year award alongside 38 Degrees, for work on issues from copyright to the Snooper's Charter. Since 2009, ORG has doubled its supporter base, budget and workload, and held its first two activist Conferences, ORGCon. Jim is a trustee of FreeUKGen, the volunteer project to digitise genealogical records, and sits on the Governance Board of CREATe, the UK's research centre for copyright and new business models in the creative economy. he is on the Advisory Council of the Foundation of Information Policy Research. Before joining ORG, Jim worked as External Communications Co-ordinator of the Green Party. At the Green Party, he promoted campaigns on open source, intellectual property, digital rights and campaigned against the arms and espionage technologist Lockheed Martin's bid for the UK Census. Lockheed Martin have since been prevented from handling UK Census data as part of their contract. He was also a leading figure in the campaign to elect their first party leader, Caroline Lucas MP. His blog can be found at http://jim.killock.org.uk/.

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s approach to intelligence is well-known and defined by her tenure as Home Secretary. While foreign intelligence technically falls into the remit of the Foreign Secretary, the policy and legal frameworks are generally administered by the Home Office.

The Home Office has – since 2010, when May was appointed Home Secretary – shaped May’s thinking and vice versa. She has been tough on the police for what she sees as poor performance and has taken stands against the abuse of the justice system, including refusing to extradite Gary McKinnon, whose hacking into U.S. military servers was balanced against his autism and mental state.

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