They not only have a Surveillance Commissioner, but they have enough of them that one ranks as CHIEF? And no one there has a problem with this?
The British are subjects. We are citizens. There is a difference--in reality and in attitude.
The unfortunate title gives a misleading impression of the role, which is not what you might think. The surveillance commissioners are a panel of senior judges to whom the security services and police are required to apply for a licence every time they want to use covert surveillance (eg phone-tapping). Their function is thus to regulate and monitor, rather than to promote, such surveillance in the very limited circumstances in which it is legal. Set up under the 19997 Police Act.