Those of my readers who are concerned about the ever-advancing power of the state and its agencies (and there are, I can assure you, quite a few) could do worse than bookmark the Big Brother Watch website.
Big Brother Watch’s mission statement is as follows:
Big Brother Watch fights injustice and campaigns to protect our civil liberties and personal freedoms.
The British state has accumulated unprecedented power and the instinct of politicians and bureaucrats is to expand their power base even further into areas unknown in peace time.
Big Brother Watch campaigns to re-establish the balance of power between the state and individuals and families.
We look for the sly, slow seizure of control by the state – of power, of information and of our lives.
We advocate the return of our liberties and freedoms and look to ordinary people to join our cause.
Regular readers will know that this blog has long railed against the apparently unbridled proliferation of CCTV cameras, the heavy-handed actions of officious jobsworths, the insidious expansion of the national DNA database and, of course, the unstoppable rise of the healthansafety industry.
I am therefore delighted at the formation of an organisation dedicated to exposing and countering these sinister and essentially New Labour trends in our society and am equally delighted to add a link to its website.
You Tories are very clever at continuously suggesting that we should all be paranoid about the size and scope of government – elected officials.
You don’t seem to have a problem with the growing size of private interests. My boss wrote us all a letter, telling us we should all shower or bath at least once a day, and we should not have “designer stubble” for our own “self esteem and self discipline”……… I’m not sure where a man like him (a child of Thatcher) has the right to tell me what my face should look like. He doesn’t know my name. His staff, are just worthless cogs in his money making machine. If the government said anything similar, tories would go mad. Your logic is that he was born into the family business, and so he has the right. He doesn’t. I will continue to have my “designer stubble”, because I do not want to live in a Country where Big Brother is not the government, not the people i’ve elected, but a bunch of rich men in suits trying to mould me to be how they wish me to be. Tories support them, and that is the very reason I will never vote Tory.
Big Brother is no longer about big government, it’s about arrogant, narcissistic, greedy rich men in big cars.
Ballot Boxes are interfered with
Voting registers go missing
The Police can kill innocent people and get away with it
You can be put in prison for 42 days on pure suspicion
You can be put in prison indefinitely on the word of a politician
The State can torture people
Your children are monitored at School by Political Officers
Their behaviour is logged on a State database for their entire lives
Your innocent fingerprints, iris scans and biometrics are held by the State
You do not have the right to remain silent
You are watched on 4 million CCTV cameras
You may not photograph the Police
The media is controlled by the State
You do not have the right to protest peacefully
Curfews exist for entire communities
Your travel movements are logged and monitored
Who you vote for is logged and monitored
Your shopping habits are studied and logged by the State
Your emails and telephone conversations are recorded by the State
Your passport can be withdrawn at the whim of the State
Government agencies can use lie detector tests on you.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-for ever.” – George Orwell
We could not agree more! Love that Site.
Don’t worry Old Holborn, everything will be ok when we have a Tory Government.
Now Look! You have to understand that the things that you list are all done for your own good (touches thumb and forefinger together to make a point)
Just trust the Government to do the right thing, after all that is why we elect them again and again isn’t it?
Whilst it is the instinct of polititians and public servants to increase their power base wherever they can, there is also a sensible balance to be made. Statements like those in the Guardian about the D.N.A. of “innocent people” being stored by the police are misleading. It would be more correct to call many of them samples of people for whom there is currently “insufficient evidence to prosecute. ” Would we be throwing the baby out with the bathwater if prevented police storing the samples, many of which recently have been used to prove offences committed decades ago?
Personally they may have my fingerprints, iris pictures, D.N.A. samples or whatever. I cannot imaginge any “jobsworth” gloating over them every working day wondering when he can fix me for the great train robbery or raping my granny. The police are fettered enough in our sick society, without attaching more shackles.
We are all criminals under New Labour. We may not have committed a crime yet but sure enough, when they have passed enough laws, we will have.
Best to collect as much information as possible. Now.
Four legs good
The litany of things the government can do according to Old Holborn is amazing; but can he prove any one of his allegations? When, for instance, was the last time a British government agency used a lie detector on any person in this country? Did he read it in the Sun I wonder? I think we have a right to know.
E mails and telephone conversations are MONITORED (not recorded) by the state at G.C.H.Q., and it would be a neglect of duty I think if they weren’t, don’t you Old Holborn?