State 'spying on Heathrow critics'

DailyMail
Civil servants are compiling dossiers on opponents of Heathrow Airport expansion and handing them over to police, it emerged yesterday.

Communications staff at the Department for Transport are gathering data on legitimate objectors to the £9billion third runway and offering the information to Scotland Yard.

Last night, Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker warned that the activities of the DfT's supposedly non-partisan civil servants were another step towards a 'Stasi-like police state'.

DfT officials monitored anyone speaking out against the planned third runway during the run-up to January's narrow Commons approval of the scheme.

Potentially the names of tens of thousands of innocent people from websites, press releases, news articles and public consultations were trawled over by bureaucrats, who then briefed detectives.

Critics suggest that even those who write letters to the DfT expressing concerns about the third runway will be checked out and the police notified.

More...