On the 5th of August I wrote to my MP about Tempora.
My concerns are quite generalised, and my letter format and styling is to be worked upon, however the most important thing was to convey my opinion, and that is what I did:
Today I received a response. Take a read, it’ll only take a second.
Some points of note:
- Lucy is recently elected, and could not have personally voted RIPA into law.
- Parliament is on recess
- Lucy is currently on maternity leave after giving birth to a new member of her family
- I like paper responses, in specific cases like this.
It’s quite easy to be disillusioned by a letter like this, but I’m happy with it. The Home Secretary, Teresa May and I will not see eye to eye, but the most important thing about this letter is something that you may not noticed first time through.
I’ve had to blank it out partially, but I now have a reference number, and this reference number means that, rather than simply sitting and waiting for Lucy to hand me a form-letter from Teresa May’s summer intern, about why “GCHQ is important for our national security” and we must “prevent terrorists and think of the children”, what the reference number means, is that I can write back and engage Lucy in the issue more.
Here’s what I have written:
We’ll see what happens.
What I do know is that writing this letter has done more than doing nothing at all, or posting on Facebook about this every day.
Writing to your MP, is quick, easy, and potentially very rewarding.