Could an uncanny crowd of Theresa Mays make the public care about the Snooper's Charter?

Sunday, a crowd of protesters wearing identical masks of Theresa May's face lurked outside parliament. They held magnifying glasses and peered over the shoulders of passerby, trying to look at their phone screens.The action’s target was the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, better known as the Snooper’s Charter, which is due for its second reading in the Commons today. Note My Vote, a website promoting public engagement with
politics, organised the protest on the basis that Home Secretary Theresa May is “rushing the bill through parliament” in order to “minimise public scrutiny”. Mike Simpson, the site’s founder, said in a statement that the bill is “likely to see UK surveillance back to a time worse than that in George Orwell’s 1984”.

Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that – well, the bill itself is, at least.  If the Snooper’s Charter took a full five years to trudge through the Commons and Lords, it still wouldn’t be fully scrutinised, since cybersecrutiny and privacy are issues so complex and new that both MPs and the public would be unlikely to get a full handle on them.

Moreover, the bill’s contents so far have been very muddled. Amid experts' concerns about privacy and state surveillance are more bsaic worries that those drafting the bill don’t actually know much about the technology behind what they’re legislating.

The bill’s first draft asked for data from Internet Service Providers which is not collected in the form required, and was received with confusion from those within the industry. Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee has noted that the draft legislation “lacks clarity”.

Open-Xchange, a software company, found in a recent survey that only 12 per cent of Britons believe the government has “adequately explained the impact of the Investigatory of the Investigatory Powers Bill to the UK public and presented a balanced argument for its introduction”. The poll was conducted online, out of a self-declared “internet-savvy” pool. Presumably, the proportion in the wider public is even lower.

Tomorrow’s debate will make clear whether MPs themselves have wrapped their heads around surveillance, encryption, and the concept of "internet connection records". (Note My Vote’s protest was also pushing a feature which allows you to “vote” for or against bills on their site, and the results will be sent to MPs ahead of the debate – so perhaps you could sway an undecided MP.)