It doesn't matter which party is in power, the state always wants more power over your life. The last Labour government tried to introduce this draconian control over our use of phones and Internet. However, for the usual party political motives the Tories and the LibDems opposed it, now they are in power and they plan to introduce the self same plans. This is probably the biggest step the state can take to pocking its nose right into your private and personal affairs. Every text, phone call, e-mail will be scrutinised, every web page you look at will be reported. Not only what pages, but how long you stayed on that page and how often you visit the page. All those silly little personal texts, and e-mails, all those very intimate phone calls, will be read and listened to by a bunch of prying government eyes and ears.
This is the sort of thing that our so called democracy spouts its mouth off about when it happens in some other repressive regime, calling it an attack on the human right of expression. It is bad when it is done overseas, but necessary when it is done here, hypocrisy rules as Big Brother bites deeper. George Orwell, why didn't we listen?
I'm planning a blog post about this at the moment. I can't believe how this society is sleep-walking into a police state. And whenever any discussion is had about the steady erosion of our civil liberties, you hear the same old 'well if you've got nothing to hide' nonsense. I don't particularly have anything to hide these days, but that doesn't mean I want the government to watch my every move to make sure I'm not doing anything illegal. Then of course, there's the naive faith from those who have had little or no contact with the police and suchlike, that these authority figures are completely trustworthy and never abuse their power. Police don't stop and search innocent people just for the hell of it, or entrap people or falsify evidence. Urgh, I really do despair!
ReplyDeleteLike you every time I hear that "if you have nothing to hide" crap, it is difficult to control the anger and disgust. Society should not be about worrying whether you have anything to hide or not, it is about the right to privacy, your intimate thoughts and conversations are just that, and no state apparatus has the right to pock their nose in. With all the hypocrisy and corruption now being exposed between the police, media and government officials, who would dream of trusting any of them with any personal information.
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