ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the chronology of events in the UK case study, starting in the late 2000s and moving on to the passing of the Investigatory Powers Act in 2016. In the United Kingdom, Snowden’s revelations had the effect of punctuating a debate already underway about whether and how surveillance and interception law should be changed to reflect the new technological – and perhaps ethical – environment. In late May 2013, a contractor working for the US firm Booz Allen Hamilton by the name of Edward Snowden, travelled from Hawaii to Hong Kong. In the post-Snowden environment, the verdict on the Intelligence and Security Committee could be said to be similarly mixed. It is the case that the ISC undertook immediate action to investigate allegations of illegality on the specific question of the PRISM programme following Snowden’s revelations.
