AS WE say goodbye to the political turbulence of 2016 one of the most overlooked bombshells is the government’s new law enabling secret state surveillance. Sometimes I blame James Bond but most of the time I just blame Theresa May.

In December it was reported that local councils have been given the go-ahead to conduct 55,000 days of secret surveillance over the last five years. Covert activity has included spying on dog walkers and those feeding pigeons — the kind of vital work for our collective security that lets us sleep soundly at night.

At the other end of the spectrum, the on going public inquiry led by Lord Justice Pitchford has confirmed some of the identities of undercover police officers that spied on British political groups.

We know that a former member of a London undercover police unit has admitted he spied on members of five trade unions; we know blacklisting was rife for decades and we know that at least 19 police forces have previously and secretly accessed journalistic communications to target and identify sources of stories.

In 2014, six National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members launched a collective legal challenge in response to finding themselves listed on a secret police database of “domestic extremists.” The database includes intimate details about their lives, including their work, their medical history and even their sexuality. Their lawful journalistic and union activities have been secretly monitored and recorded by the police.

The NUJ has been campaigning against this unjustified state surveillance of journalists and citizens for many years.

We worked hard to highlight the dangers contained in the Investigatory Powers Bill now Act, the so-called snoopers’ charter. During last year’s legislative process we negotiated with government representatives and received some minor concessions, however many of the worst aspects of the new law were simply nodded through by MPs and lords from across the political spectrum.

The government swept aside our specific and varied proposals for additional safeguards to be included in the draft law and they consistently disregarded the immense and detrimental impact on our own civil liberties, press freedom in Britain and the implications for the rest of the world. 

When an NUJ delegation met with Egyptian members of parliament and government representatives in November, they wanted to hear all about the new spying powers.

The snoopers’ charter means the authorities can access or hack your phone or computer.

They can access electronic devices, documents, diaries, contact books, photographs, messaging chat logs and location records. Microphones and webcams can be turned on in secret and by the authorities — so much easier for state agencies than going to the bother of bugging a house or a car.

The law compels commercial companies to ensure they log your personal internet browsing history. This means that if you are reading this online, your internet service provider stores this information, makes a note that you visited the Morning Star website on this day and time and records how you have accessed the site.

Information about every website you visit is logged and stored for a year and there are 48 official bodies that can then access this information known as “internet connection records.” The organisations with the ability to access this data include government departments and agencies across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as police forces, the NHS, DWP and Immigration Service.

This new law means that journalists won’t know if and when their work and their sources are being compromised by the state. Consequently it becomes practically impossible to uphold the union’s ethical code of conduct enshrining the principle to protect the sources of stories.

Most journalists rely on members of the public to come forward with information and these sources will often be quoted in public, but sometimes people will come forward to reveal sensitive or secret information that can shine a light on a range of issues including state misconduct, corporate corruption or organised crime.

It is in the public interest that this information is exposed — to raise awareness, provoke a public debate or build sufficient pressure for necessary reform.

In many of these cases whistleblowers will only come forward to speak to the media on the basis of anonymity and the NUJ’s ethical code of conduct says that journalists should protect the identity of sources supplying information in confidence.

Examples of vital sources of information that need protection include those involved in the BBC’s Panorama investigations into abuse at the Winterbourne View care home or the Medway Secure Training Centre. Other examples include the Channel 4 news investigation of working conditions at JD Sports and the Guardian’s reportage of the exploitative practices at Sports Direct.

The impact of the Investigatory Powers Act on journalists and democracy are profound. That’s why we have welcomed the decision of the European Court of Justice that general and indiscriminate retention of email and electronic communications by the British government is illegal and that targeted surveillance should only be used if it is necessary to tackle serious crime. 

This result was in response to a legal case mounted by MPs David Davis and Tom Watson with the support of Liberty, the Law Society, the Open Rights Group and Privacy International. 

As a union we believe this decision should trigger a public debate and a renewed campaigning alliance able to force a rethink about the acceptable limits of the state’s arbitrary and secretive intrusion into our daily lives. Our politicians may have allowed this law to come into being but the fight to overturn it has only just begun.

• Michelle Stanistreet is the general secretary of the NUJ.

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