Swiss voters have approved a new surveillance law, after the government argued that security services needed enhanced powers in an increasingly volatile world. The proposed law won 65.5% support, final results on Sunday showed. “This is not generalised surveillance,” Yannick Buttet, the Christian Democratic party vice president, told public broadcaster RTS as results were coming in. “It’s letting the intelligence services do their job.”The Swiss defence minister, Guy Parmelin, said Switzerland was “leaving the basement and coming up to the ground floor by international standards”. Buttet argued that Swiss intelligence agencies had become too reliant on help from other nations because they were deprived of using the full range of modern investigative tools.

Source: The Guardian September 25, 2016 17:49 UTC