NEARLY fifty years ago Prime Minister Harold Wilson gave a clear commitment to Parliament that MPs’ phones would not be tapped. Coming on the back of a series of allegations that such eavesdropping was taking place, this policy became known as the Wilson doctrine and the assumption has generally held since then.

There have been debates about its extent and application. People have asked whether it should, or did, extend to parliaments which did not exist back in the mid 1960s. MEPs, MSPs and representatives in the devolved assemblies have made the case that our communication with constituents is of an equal status and that members of the public have the same right to seek confidential contact with those elected to public office. Similarly, as technology moved on there were debates about the doctrine’s application to newer forms of communication.

But the basic principle still applies. In a democracy people elect representatives to hold governments to account, and for that role to be properly exercised it must be possible to communicate with them about matters which will embarrass a government without fearing that those held to scrutiny are secretly listening.

But this week that principle was dealt a serious blow. In a ruling from the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, it has been declared that the Wilson doctrine has essentially no effect. It has no legal status. It cannot be relied upon and people who need to approach their elected representatives on issues which they know the government is sensitive about have no clear protection against surveillance by the security services.

Most people won’t need to think hard to come up with examples of such issues. From the infiltration of legitimate peaceful activism by undercover officers, to the investigation of fraud and corruption in big business; from the prevalence of institutional racism, to allegations that child abusers or other criminals have been protected by the powers that be in government, church or military; the history of such scandals often shows the need for whistleblowers to have the certainty that they can speak confidentially to someone with a platform in Parliament to campaign for justice.

To abandon that principle is, as put by my colleague Caroline Lucas (one of those whose challenge the Tribunal was ruling on), a body blow for democracy.

I watched Caroline repeatedly jump to her feet at Prime Minister’s Questions this Wednesday, the day the ruling had been issued, thinking that surely the Speaker must call her when the role of Parliament had been undermined so directly. In the end however she had to wait till the Prime Minister had left to raise a Point of Order, meaning that he was not called to respond. Other ministers, including the Leader of the House, were in their seats but were not called to answer even the simple question of when a full debate would be held.

But the strength of view across all political parties was clear. Alex Salmond (uncharacteristically self-deprecating as “a newish Member of the House”) was next to stand up asking how Parliament could ensure that clear answers could be sought from ministers. Labour and Tory members made similar pleas, and LibDem MSP Alison McInnes has also raised the issue in a motion at Holyrood.

This is not an issue which can be allowed to slide and the principle of the public’s right to confidential communication with representatives must be reasserted.

However we should also go further. We must acknowledge that we have allowed a gradual increase in surveillance in our society to the point where the mass monitoring of the whole population has become the norm. The Wilson Doctrine does not sit easily with that, but nor do the basic civil liberties of any one of us.

The networked age in which we live, the age of big data, has many advantages. But it also poses threats which we must be alive to. The routine mass gathering of data and metadata about us is taking place with neither our informed consent nor proper democratic accountability or oversight. It is being carried out by the state and by big business, and as a society we are failing to keep a check on the abuse of the unprecedented forms of power which this new ability creates.

During the independence referendum, the Greens sought to raise some of these issues in a paper on Digital Rights (still available at http://bit.do/digitalrights). Surveillance, privacy, freedom of speech, open standards, intellectual property and net neutrality are issues which often feel impenetrable for people without a technical grounding. But they will increasingly define our freedoms, and the limits to those freedoms, in critical ways. This week’s ruling on the Wilson Doctrine matters, but is only one expression of a trend which has already gone too far toward a surveillance state.