Our private lives are at risk.

Home Secretary Theresa May is trying to make a shady deal with the giants of the internet and telecoms industry, in an attempt to get access to all of our private data -- literally, all.

May's Investigatory Powers Bill (aka Snoopers' Charter) will put the capabilities revealed by Snowden into the statute books and actually increase the state's surveillance powers.

But there's a way we can stop this bill. There are rumblings that the big companies charged with collecting and handing over all our data don't even want to do it -- it's extremely costly and they know that it is a huge breach of trust with us, their customers.

Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Vodafone, EE, O2, and Three have already expressed concern about the bill. Now, let's ask one of the UK's biggest telecoms providers, BT, to do the same. It could make all the difference.

Tell BT -- please speak out against the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill.

There are three massive issues with this bill.

• Companies could be required to stop encrypting our data. This is a really big deal, because that encryption is the only way we know our pictures and messages are kept private, and that we won't be spied on by foreign governments or criminals. Right now, if a company is hacked then our encrypted information remains safe. This bill would threaten that.
• Internet service providers will have to keep very detailed records of what sites people have accessed and store those records for a year. These large stores of information are much more detailed than anything stored now, and it's almost guaranteed that we will see multiple leaks and hacks.
• It makes mass or blanket surveillance legal, and makes it illegal for companies to tell you when they have passed on your data to the government. Mass or blanket surveillance contravenes Article 8 (the right to respect for private and family life) and Article 10 (the right to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In real terms: imagine every site you have ever visited being made public. Your location history, your photos, your medical records and personal finances laid bare for any foreign government or criminal to access. That is what we're up against.

BT has been here before. In the 1980s it was routinely pressurised by the government to spy on entirely lawful citizens such as trade union and political activists until an MI5 whistleblower, Cathy Massiter, spoke out.

30 years later, we have an opportunity to stop this bill in its tracks, and ask BT to do the right thing.

Tell BT -- please speak out against the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill.

The second draft of the bill is being revised now, and will be reported and voted on in the coming months. There's not much time for companies to speak out, but we know the tide is already turning.

Big telecoms companies have already said more powerful things that they have ever said before, in statements that were put to the joint bill committee. We know that companies like BT are already concerned that the Snoopers' Charter will mean they'll have to play 'an improper role for their customers.' Now is the perfect moment to push them to speak out.

The SumOfUs community has come together to protect internet freedom before, mobilising tens of thousands of internet users to submit public comments, sign petitions, and make phone calls to pass strong Net Neutrality rules in the US. We were also successful at stalling the NHS England sale of personal medical data to big business.

SumOfUs exists for exactly this reason -- to bring people together and use our collective power to curb shady deals between industry and government that are not in the public's best interest.

Use that power now and tell BT to speak out against the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill.

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More information:

Investigatory powers bill: the key points, The Guardian, 4th November 2015
Facebook, Google, Twitter unite to attack 'snoopers' charter', Wired, 7th January 2016