Professor Peter Sommer, a visiting professor in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science - and a contributor to Infosecurity's webinar programme - says that the Home Office are right to be concerned about the impact on investigations of the ways in which criminals and others may use the internet.
However, he says, they are wrong to think that this can be done by light tinkering with existing legislation.
Current law, says Professor Sommer - such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000 (RIPA) - is based on the old-fashioned telephone.
There are, he explains, two main powers: The first is a demand by a senior law enforcement official for 'communications data' - who called whom, when and for how long, in effect something like a detailed phone bill. ISPs retain all of this for 12 months in case law enforcement decide to ask for it.
"The second and much more intrusive power - a warrant to intercept the content, that is, eavesdropping on what is said - is granted not by judges but by the Home Secretary of the day."
"Moreover intercept material is inadmissible - it cannot be used or even be referred to in court."
According to Professor Sommer, with internet technology you have to collect everything and then throw away what the law does not allow you to have or use.
Against this backdrop, the LSE says that - at a practical level - the communications data/interception distinction will be impossible to interpret both for ISPs and the courts.
Moreover, the Professor argues, the existing balance of protections against abuse will also be lost.
"We are also concerned that the Home Office is characterising its aims as maintaining an interception capability when police powers and capabilities to watch the public have increased significantly over the last 15 years."
"We need a full debate about the balance between threats to public safety, police powers, the effectiveness of safeguards, and cost."
Professor Sommer notes that the Home Office says the cost of the internet surveillance to taxpayers will be £2 billion, but provides no clue as to how this was calculated.
On top of this, he says, an additional burden is being placed on ISPs - the same people who, under the Digital Britain plans, are expected to provide the UK with high-speed internet connection as a cheap universal service.
The good news, Professor Sommer says, is that the Parliamentary All Party Privacy Group are holding hearings about the Interception Modernisation Programme this July, and that they are using the LSE's work as a starting point.
According to the LSE, the proposals from the Home Office to increase the capability of law enforcement and the intelligence agencies to collect and analyse the internet activities of all UK citizens can only work if entirely new laws are passed by Parliament.
In addition, says the LSE, the public also needs to be persuaded that the threats from terrorism and crime are so extensive as to justify ever greater levels of intrusion and expenditure.
Telephone companies and ISPs, the LSE notes, are already compelled to retain 'communications data' for all their customers, at least 70% of the population, for a period of 12 months.
Under the Home Office proposals - Protecting the Public in a Changing Communications Environment published in April - ISPs would be required to retain much more information and pre-analyse it.
The aim, says the LSE, is to enable the police and others to meet the challenges of the many new features of the internet.
These include web-based email, instant messaging, internet telephony, social networking and online gaming.
Infosecurity notes that the Home Office says it has abandoned plans to hold all relevant UK internet traffic in a large central database.
A copy of the LSE's study can be found in the 'Related links' section on the right hand side of this page.