Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon has said the government is prepared to go " quite a long way " with civil liberties to " stop terrorists killing people ," BBC reported.
He was responding to criticism of plans for a database of mobile and web records , saying it was needed because terrorists used such communications .
By not monitoring this traffic , it would be " giving a licence to terrorists to kill people ", he said .
Lib Dem MP Julia Goldsworthy queried how far it would undermine freedom .
Earlier the government confirmed the controversial plans would not be in the Queen's Speech .
On BBC One's Question Time , Mr Hoon said the plans would only extend powers that already exist for ordinary telephone calls , to cover data and information " going across the internet ". If they are going to use the internet to communicate with each other and we don't have the power to deal with that , then you are giving a licence to terrorists to kill people
Geoff Hoon
Transport secretary
He said the police and security services needed the powers to deal with " terrorists or criminals " using telephones connected to the internet , for " perfectly proper reasons , to protect our society ".
But the Lib Dems ' communities spokeswoman Julia Goldsworthy said it sounded like " something I would expect to read in [ George Orwell's book ] 1984" and questioned whether the government and councils could be trusted not to misuse the powers .
She asked : " How much more control can they have ? How far is he prepared to go to undermine civil liberties ?"
Mr Hoon interjected : " To stop terrorists killing people in our society , quite a long way actually .
" If they are going to use the internet to communicate with each other and we don't have the power to deal with that , then you are giving a licence to terrorists to kill people ."