This is yet more proof, if proof were needed, that once again terrorism works. In the guise of preventing terrorism (and other crime, admittedly, but it's mainly terrorism they talk about) our 'Elected Leaders' are stampeding full tilt into a surveillance police state that Stalin would have wet himself over. To protect us from a threat from people who apparently are jealous of our freedoms (which I'm not at all convinced exists, or at least to an extent which would differentiate it to any meaningful degree from normal car accidents, smoking and alcohol related deaths, and so on), these people seem intent on simply removing those freedoms completely, thus neatly doing what the 'enemy' apparently desires. Then we're told its for our own good.

Consider. Within the next two to six years:

All movements of vehicles will be tracked at all times on roads everywhere in the country, and on private property (such as petrol stations, etc). The records will be kept for some years, so they can go fishing for things much later.

All electronic communications (email, web access, phone, sms, etc) will be logged and the records kept for years, etc, etc.

All citizens will be issued, at their expense, identity papers which will include dozens of details about them, including fingerprints, iris scans, digitised photos, NI number, address, DOB, and everything else that a neofascist somewhere can think of. All these details will be stored in a database which will be accessible to, basically, anyone who works for the government in any capacity at all. Incorrect details will be a finable offence, even if you had nothing to do with it. Eventually these papers will be mandatory, and living a normal life impossible without them anyway.

The last item was pushed through parliment, without any public vote or discussion worth speaking of, after a disinformation campaign of remarkable length.

The first item doesn't seem to have been discussed in public at all, apart from occasional mentions in some media.

The second item was more or less simply mandated by eurocrats and expanded on by the Blairites who felt it didn't go far enough.

So essentially the police (among others) will have the instant ability to know who you are, where you live, where you've been (at any time for the last couple of years), who you've talked to (at any time for the last couple of years), who has talked to you (at any time...), where you are now, and many other interesting facts. They won't need much, if any, reason to get these details, won't need to tell you that they're doing so, and you will have little comeback if/when something goes horribly wrong as a result of incorrect information.

In addition to these measures, the government has managed to equate in the minds of much of the populace ( the Sun reader type mainly) a desire for what used to be called a private life with an admission of something to hide, which may well be suspicious and proof of criminal intent. A conversation that Rob S and I had with a chav at paddington station a year ago shows how strong this feeling is among that segment of the population, all the more worrying because they have neither anything more to back it up than "they said", or any apparent ability to think it through and spot the flaws.

Essentially, it seems to be steadily eroding the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty' and replacing it with 'criminal we haven't charged yet'. Yet, even so, people will still commit crimes, murders will happen just the same, terrorism attacks will go on. The clean-up rate may increase slightly, some types of fairly petty crime will become rare, but the serious or committed criminals will still succeed quite often. They always do. A lot of them are working for the government

For instance, the car tracking thing. Apparently it will stop stolen cars being used in committing other crimes, presumably because the owner will report the car as stolen and it will then be traced and stopped in short order. Leaving aside the inevitable official cockups that will prevent this actually happening in many cases, at least until it's too late, what happens when the owner of said stolen car is in the boot with a knife in his back? Criminal needs car for serious crime, criminal steals car, but now criminal eliminates witness.

Or, criminal borrows licence plates from same make, model, and colour of car as one he has access to, commits crime, puts plates back. Innocent person (defined officially as 'someone who hasn't committed a crime, yet') gets the blame. Much hilarity ensues.

This is all making me very unhappy. Could you guess?

pca

While I agree with the body of your post, I think the title is incorrect.

I don't believe that Osama bin Laden (or whoever the bogeyman of the week is) could give a flying flip whether you're being tracked by your government or not. I'm pretty sure that he wants the western world to stop supporting Israel and the Saudi government.

From my point of view, the stuff you describe means we've lost a war that no one started. The real battle has not yet been met because no one on our side will show up.

Quote:
these people seem intent on simply removing those freedoms completely... Then we're told its for our own good... All movements of vehicles... All electronic communications... will be logged and the records kept for years... identity papers... dozens of details... neofascist... database... accessible to... anyone who works for the government... without any public vote or discussion... disinformation campaign... mandated by eurocrats... the police... instant ability to know who you are, where you live, where you've been... who you've talked to... you will have little comeback if/when something goes horribly wrong...

Well, from your government's perspective, it's a good thing you guys gladly turned in all of your guns and sharp knives in the last few years. Otherwise, there could be a revolution. But I guess for now you're stuck with Big Brother.

If something goes horribly wrong in America, I'm going to start shooting, just like my great great grandfather did 230 years ago. That's one reason why I'm thankful that my home country has the 2nd amendment. Maybe y'all should re-think gun control policy and take back control of your government.

But I know, I'm sure any level-headed Brit would say that's absurd.

But aren't these laws absurd?

For what it's worth, both fingerprints and iris scans can be done in such a way as to differentiate "live" from "dead". In a fingerprint scanner, you can potentially look for heat, for a pulse, or even use those nifty optical blood oxygen sensors. Likewise, an iris scanner can look for evidence of a pulse and can even flash a light or something to detect evidence of photosensitivity. The issue, as always, is cost.

(And, worse yet, biometrics of all sorts are non-revocable. If for whatever reason it turns out that you and somebody else share a biometric, maybe because you're twins, or maybe just a result of a bad turn of luck, then there's absolutely nothing you can do to fix it.)

The big brotherly aspects of this smell awfully like something out of a dystopian cyberpunk novel. Really, it's not about changing the presumption of innocence as much as it's a wholesale elimination of any "right of privacy" that we might have ever had. Probably the only place that Joe Sixpack truly understands the value of privacy is when it comes to spam (whether phone, mail, or whatnot). Similarly, if I get mistakenly flagged in some database, perhaps as a result of identity theft or whatnot, it's easy to imagine falling into a Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to straighten things out again.

Further proof that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Here's how it will work:
Every computer system can and will be broken into.
Villains will find ways to jam cameras, mask plates, or fabricate plates.
Villains will compromise the system to track their enemies, government, etc.
Government will miss villains, too preocupied by monitoring their political enemies.
Government will blunder villain tracking.
Countless civilians will be wronglyfully detained and infringed upon.

By creating a system this pathetically weak, it's further proof that "terrorism" may not even exist at all. Maybe science fiction is right and terrorism is a government facade to push more restrictions on us, further feeding the demented power obsession of our leaders.

Further proof that humans are too feeble minded, instinct-driven and animalistic to have any control over other humans. Further proof humanity should be removed from this planet as soon as possible.

Lots of historical precedence. Though the victors rarely write of their actions as terrorisim.

The people who fly those F-16's, pilot the M1's, and shoot the M16's are all americans. What are the Feds gonna do when half of the military joins the revolt and bases are taken over by rebels?

...by playing dirty. Hire a few black hat hackers to join the American rebels to strike all the weak American government systems. Who needs guns.

No, no. He's from the Netherlands, remember? Definitely not anywhere like Louisiana.

If the Brits had been willing to let the American colonists take part in the houses of government, We'd most likely still be speaking English.

Quote:
I find it astonishing that citizens of the world's strongest democracy could have such little confidence in their political system that they consider it necessary to be prepared at all times for civil war.

It's the lack of confidence in a ruling elite that makes the system strong. When the population has the capability of launching a revolt, then the ultimate power remains in the hands of the people, not the rulers.


wfaulk, why are you concerned about where I live?