Letter: Policing the Net

Sir: I was astonished that you saw fit only to include only a very small article on the crime that is about to be committed against civil liberties in this country. I refer to the police forcing Internet Service Providers to hand over customers' e-mails. This is yet further evidence of the way this country is sleepwalking its way into a state of totalitarian controls.

The police recourse to the 1984 Data Protection Act is irrelevant, as the Internet and the Web had not taken off at that time, and "electronic data" meant something different to what it does now.

TERRY M BOARDMAN

Stourbridge, West Midlands