Councils rapped as spy requests surge/Times Online, July 23, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4382907.ece

"Official ‘surveillance’ requests for details of telephone and internet records have surged to 1,400 a day, according to figures published yesterday. The annual number of ‘spying’ requests for private communications data jumped to almost 520,000 last year, compared with an average of less than 350,000 in the two previous years."