It wouldn't be the equivalent of being able to open any post without a warrant or tap any phone without a warrant, would it? The metadata access might not, but the communications would require a similar threshold of authorisation as opening letters and tapping phones now, no?
How would you update them, if you concede they need updating?
Well, for starters I would suggest the government comply with EU law regarding data retention.
http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ng-law-in-forcing-data-retention-by-companies
But despite the fact that the directive which mandated the creation of the UK act was struck down, the UK government has not yet moved to invalidate the Act. Answering a parliamentary question from Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert the Home Office minister James Brokenshire revealed last week that the government had explicitly notified telecoms providers that "they should continue to observe their obligations as outlined in any notice", despite the ruling.
I'd also suggest they closed loopholes like this
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ophole-to-access-phone-and-email-records.html
Which means there isn't anywhere near as much protection for emails as letters, contrary to your suggestion.
Then a digital bill of rights reigning in the actions of organisations like GCHQ and partners, while protecting the rights of citizens to privacy.
At the moment there is less protection for emails and electronic communication than communication by post or telephone. I'm suggesting it should be the same. Do you really believe copying all posted letters automatically, storing them on a server and only "looking" at them when a warrant is sought is a reasonable thing to do?
Emails are private until police can provide enough evidence to a judge to allow a warrant to be taken out and ISP/email provider contacted requesting access to a specific account. Hoovering up all the data initially (which is essentially what GCHQ and the NSA are doing) is not the same at all. The former is fine, there are checks and balances, the latter is not.
Can you provide any evidence that greater access to the metadata and information of random people on the internet will have stopped any terrorist incident? As I've already pointed out, all the incidents over the last several years were perpetuated by people the security services already knew about, but neglected to actually spend resources on. Alongside that can you provide any court cases that may or may not be related to foiling actual terrorist attacks that used electronic means (rather than suspicious behaviour picked up by family/neighbours/police)?
If you can't, can you explain why the government needs to access more of our data? For legislation to go through there should be a damn good reason if it's this authoritarian. At the moment I cannot see any need for this and there has been no evidence (other than hyperbole by politicians) that this is needed. Show the evidence and I may change my mind.
EDIT: I will concede that a lot of this post is less about the "snoopers charter" and more about the general internet privacy debate. Still, having access to everything you do and everyone you talk to on the internet and phones is a little worrying, don't you think? It's called stalking in the real world.
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