The Lib Dems promises to end the governments mass surveillance if they get elected to power
The Liberal democrats have called the current Investigatory Powers Act an Orwellian nightmare (comparing it to the Novel 1984) and promised to remove the current bulk surveillance if they win the general election. They are also strongly against the Tories plans to undermine encryption by forcing companies to put backdoors into their products that will allow security services unfettered access.
The Lib Dems have been against increasing the powers of the state when it comes to mass monitoring for some time but with their current standing of only 9 MPs they don’t have much clout in the houses of Parliament, since the leaked Labour manifesto mentions nothing about the ‘spying bill’ it can only be assumed that only the Liberal Democrats are currently standing up against it and perhaps this could get them a few more votes from people who care about their privacy.
The Lib Dems have promised that instead of spending billions on mass surveillance they would put this money back into targeted monitoring and community policing.
If the Investigatory Powers Act goes through in its current form it will make the UK have the most monitored internet access of any western country. Even though expects have cast doubt over whether it will have any affect and reducing terrorism, since terrorist could still use ‘home grown’ encryption and use VPNs to access the internet to avoid having their messages monitored.