Police given licence to snoop

Police have won greater freedom to spy on private e-mails after a ruling by Britain's most senior judge.

Telecoms company NTL went to the High Court over concerns it might be breaking the law by co-operating in a fraud inquiry.

But Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf ruled the firm had 'lawful authority' to intercept and store e-mails without the consent of the NTL customer being investigated by police.

Civil liberties groups condemned the ruling, calling it 'another step down the slippery slope' of erosion of rights.

But the Home Office said the judge has merely clarified existing laws.

Last year, Suffolk detectives asked NTL to keep all e-mail traffic from a customer in Ipswich suspected of being caught up in an international conspiracy involving 'fabulous sums of money'.

Lord Woolf said the difficulty NTL faced was that its automatic destruction of e-mails, once a user had accessed them, could not be overridden for just one e-mail address.

Its only option was to intercept the individual's e-mails and re-route them to a second, secret address to be stored for police use.

The Lord Chief Justice accepted that such interceptions would normally be criminal. But, because the force's request for help was sanctioned by Ipswich Crown Court, he ruled that NTL was not guilty of an offence.

Aspokesman for human rights group Liberty said: 'This is yet another step down a slippery slope.

'It is becoming progressively harder to safeguard the privacy of e-mails. If the police get a hint of anything they think is remotely suspicious, they will be able to get authority to examine the contents of private e-mails.

'There is a worryingly tightening net on all sorts of private information. The system has few checks and balances.'

But Lord Woolf said safeguards lay in the fact that police had to justify their applications in court to obtain the special production orders.

And 'no harm' would be caused to customers by interception and storage of their e-mails because their contents could be disclosed to police only on a judge's orders.

Anthony Hudson, representing NTL, warned Lord Woolf that his decision would raise privacy issues of 'general public importance'.

The judge said he was prepared to certify the case fit for consideration by the country's highest court, the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords. But if NTL wanted Law Lords to hear it, the company had to apply directly to them for permission to appeal, he added.