5 JULY 1957, Page 16

Tapping Intelligence

HITHERTO the Home Secretary had to sign a warrant when it was necessary to examine any particular letter passing through the Royal Mails. I now signed gen- eral warrants authorising the examination of all the correspondence of particular people upon a list, to which additions were continually made.

Sir Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, p. 52.

PERMISSION is not given in relation to categories of offence or in relation to all offences of a given descrip- tion. Each application is considered in relation to the circumstances of the particular case.

Mr. R. A. Butler, in the House of Commons, June 27.