On reflection, my comment was poorly worded. I did not intend to appear to agree with the "give me your passwords then" argument. I don't think it is a sensible argument in this case. Someone can be in favour of granting further investigatory powers without wishing to give their passwords to all and sundry.

I was disagreeing with the final part of the comment:

letting the government see it for national security purposes.

Framing the debate in such terms is not giving the full story. These powers will not be used solely to improve national security. I don't mean that in an alarmist fashion - look at the example I gave. Using Ripa to catch poorly-behaved dog owners is not exactly a massive conspiracy that we should all fear, is it? :-)

You are just making yourself and your beliefs seem (keyword there, seem, I'm not picking a side) even more like the realm of conspiracy theorists rather than something that might actually happen.

The text of the Bill backs up my points - data access is not limited to the security services and matters of national security. It is very uncool to insinuate I am a conspiracy nut for making this point.

You don't know my beliefs on this topic, although as I said my comment was poorly worded, so perhaps you levelled this accusation at me while assuming I was part of the "show us your emails then" brigade. It's an incorrect assumption though - I am for parts of this Bill, and against parts of it.

Like you, I'm not picking sides on this. I merely wanted to point out that a) once such powers are introduced they tend to be used more widely, and b) data access it not limited to the security services. I'll admit point A is just my humble opinion based on my experience, but point B is part of the text of the proposed Bill.