Henry Porter writes in the Guardian, One of the things about British society that is very hard to understand is the almost complete lack of popular concern about the imminence of the surveillance society.But there can be no mistake after the report by the Royal Academy of Engineering, Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance - Challenges of Technological Change, that we ignore what is happening at our peril and that we have a very short time to act. "There is a choice," say the authors of the report, "between a Big Brother world where individual privacy is almost extinct and a world where the data being kept by individual organisations or services are protected and kept secret."   more »

TONY Blair is secretly backing plans to create a permanent President of Europe. It is now being discussed as part of negotiations in Berlin aimed at reviving the Constitution without sparking more referendums.   more »