by Bethany Rielly
THE spycops Bill is “one of the most dangerous” pieces of legislation ever proposed, Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti warned today as she launched a last-minute bid to weaken it.
The Covert Human Intelligence Bill seeks to give protection from prosecution to undercover agents and informants working for the police or intelligence service who commit authorised crimes.
Baroness Chakrabarti warned that such “blanket immunity” would open the door to “countless abuses of power and scandals in relations to criminality and abuses of human rights, potentially for many years into the future.”
She sought to remove the immunity element from the Bill by tabling two amendments at the legislation’s report stage in the House of Lords.