I DIDN'T break the law last week. Like the greatest number of
you, I didn't break the law the week before, or the week before that.
Once upon a time I played football flagrantly in places where football
was strictly forbidden. Years ago I withheld the poll tax, very
politely I thought. But as criminal masterminds go, I'm one of life's
innocent bystanders.
So why is someone always trying to take my picture? Why does the
government insist I pay for a plastic card just to grant complete
strangers instant access to private information? Why does an English
high court judge, a Lord Justice Sedley, believe it would be “fairer”
if my genetic material, along with the DNA of everyone else who resides
in or visits Britain, was held on a giant database?
I could rearrange the questions. Why is someone always watching me?
Why is a supposedly democratic government obsessed with gathering
information about me? In both cases, part of the answer is either
downright scary or (I can't quite decide) profoundly offensive. The
presumption of innocence is being discarded. Everyone is a suspect.
Imagine if they posted two goons at your doorstep day and night.
Imagine if you were followed routinely on your way to work, if a minute
digital record was kept of your every pursuit, habit, purchase and
movement. A decent loyalty card can do the job, but at least you get
points in exchange for your soul. Govern-ment agencies prefer simply to
demand, and what they do not demand they take.
According to human right watchdog Liberty, the Home Office has spent
78% of its crime prevention budget on CCTV over the past decade or so.
The Home Office has not, meanwhile, spent much time establishing if
cameras deter crimes or detect crimes, perhaps because it can guess the
answer.
As of January 2004, in the most recent figures I could unearth,
4,285,000 of the little beasts were operational in the UK. That's 20%
of the planetary total. How does the rest of the world manage? On the
other hand, when did Britain become such a hell-hole as to require one
in five of all the surveillance cameras on earth?
If I have done nothing wrong, which is to say illegal, what I happen to
do is no-one's business. If my body language is being “assessed” by
some unseen operator for clues as to what might be going through my
mind, however, I am, whatever anyone pretends, being investigated as a
potential criminal. To be law-abiding is no longer an excuse.
And then there is DNA……
Read the complete article by Ian Bell in the Sunday Herald.
Its time to say no more. Its time to say get rid of this Orwellian society that NuLab has built.
THE REAL POLITICS IS NOW BETWEEN THE AUTHORITARIAN AND THE LIBERTARIAN
Privacy and the liberty of the person are much the same thing. Lose one
and you lose the other. If you do not think that's such a big deal,
consider this: once they're gone, they're gone for good. Console
yourself, if you like, with the thought that no harm can come to the
law- abiding. For them, that's not who you are. You are a crime waiting
to happen. Guilty until you can claw back your innocence.
NuLab – Destroying Britain from the inside out.
