There are serious problems with it. (I speak as someone who's normally okay with 'big government' and legal restrictions.)
In theory you'd have to be doing something to get their attention. The most well known case is of a man who has a psychotic illness and who was also importing "explosives" and behaving in odd ways. But that's what some people with a mental illness do. It's one of the features of illness, that people are not rational and do not do things that are in their best interest.
The "give us your key or go to jail" are not the worst abuses of RIPA though. This would be rare, and people would have legal representation. The local councils mis-using RIPA to see if people are applying to the wrong schools are worse. These are already so common they've had to be cut back, and there's little opportunity for legal representation and the oversight is much less.
There are serious problems with it. (I speak as someone who's normally okay with 'big government' and legal restrictions.)
In theory you'd have to be doing something to get their attention. The most well known case is of a man who has a psychotic illness and who was also importing "explosives" and behaving in odd ways. But that's what some people with a mental illness do. It's one of the features of illness, that people are not rational and do not do things that are in their best interest.
The "give us your key or go to jail" are not the worst abuses of RIPA though. This would be rare, and people would have legal representation. The local councils mis-using RIPA to see if people are applying to the wrong schools are worse. These are already so common they've had to be cut back, and there's little opportunity for legal representation and the oversight is much less.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Po...)