NEW laws granting security services additional snooping powers suffered a heavy setback yesterday when a government terrorism watchdog said they must be scrapped and rewritten from scratch.

Independent government terrorism legislation reviewer David Anderson QC called for a total overhaul of the approach to intrusive powers used by the authorities to combat terrorism and serious crime.

“The current law is fragmented, obscure, under constant challenge and variable in the protections that it affords the innocent,” he said.