The overreaching surveillance state in the U.S. certainly takes most of the headlines, but the UK is every bit on par if not worse. A recent report, responded to below by Steve Jolly of NOCCTV, indicates that there have been 700,000 police requests to access private communications in the UK over a two-year period - which amounts to a request every 2 minutes. And these requests are almost never denied; in fact, they have a 96% approval rate. This surely can't purely be to "thwart terrorism."