ABSTRACT
Terrorism is a generic concept covering a wide range of phenomena, with important political, philosophical, psychological, historical, ethical and legal dimensions. In this chapter, the author begins by explaining his position on the balance between state counterterrorism and surveillance powers and human rights, namely the right to privacy, which in this case is tapered to centre upon digital privacy. The right to privacy has collided with legitimate advances in technology in the 21st Century. The consequence of the UK's broadly drafted counterterrorism legal framework is to criminalise almost any expression of a view that an armed resistance to a brutal or repressive anti-democratic regime could, in certain circumstances, be justifiable. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA) is an essential element in the UK Government's approach, assisting in the determination of which members of the public are friend and which foe.
