"It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
1984. written by George Orwell - published 1949.
November the 9th 2009 was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, and the end of a socialist experiment that kept millions of Germans in de-facto prison factories. I would like to say it is ironic - unexpected or coincidental -, but it is not.The very next day, November 10th 2009 the British government announced its determination to push ahead with a database that will monitor every single phone call, every single email sent and received in the UK and every single web site visited by any of the 70 million people that live here.
Many have said that our right to privacy is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. I believe this understates the impact of government monitoring. I think most will agree the most heinous of crimes committed in the former “Democratic” Republic of East Germany were performed by the dreaded secret police, known as the Stasi. Not only did they keep files on every citizen, they also blackmailed and cajoled friends, neighbours and even family into spying upon one another,
Privacy arguments tend to be emotional; boiled down to Security versus Privacy. The argument goes if you have nothing to hide, why worry? If this were the case, why do we lock the door when using a public toilet? This fallacy has been comprehensively destroyed by a report commissioned by London’s metropolitan police released in August this year.
Written by detective chief inspector Mick Neville it was revealed that over four million closed circuit TV cameras (CCTV) are in the UK, with one million in London. According to Neville for every 1,000 cameras, one crime is solved per year. In a separate report by the House of Lords, the UK’s second house of parliament, in the ten years to 2006 over £500 million was spent in CCTV cameras. This money could have been used to employ roughly 1000 extra police every year for ten years.
Furthermore, in recent weeks it has become known that over 200 bodies ranging form local government, to animal protection officers have access to data harvested through laws designed for anti terrorism. Access to personal data has never been open to more abuse than it is today. This includes your financial data.
According to reports over the past few weeks in addition to the 200 or so agencies allowed access to anti terrorism surveillance data, an additional 800 public bodies have been authorised the power to confiscate your assets. Laws created to combat organised crime can now be used by local government, Royal Mail, payment agencies even transport authorities to confiscate your private possessions.
Everywhere You Go, Everything You Do.
It has also been reported that Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology that was sold to the public as a safety measure to stop illegal drivers is used to stop legal, democratic protestors. According to FIT Watch, a non profit organisation, Forward Intelligence Teams have been using ANPR to track and monitor “known” activists.
To make it clear, law-abiding citizens that plan to protest against government intrusions such as building a nuclear power station in their town are used to detain and delay activists by monitoring their cars as they travel around the country. In reality everywhere we go is monitored, and the chances of your DNA being harvested for no reason whatsoever have never been greater.
In August this year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the DNA database of over four million UK citizens is illegal and a breach of their human rights. This database has been compiled by harvesting DNA for simple motoring transgressions, and also contains over 750,000 samples from juveniles.
The European court said that keeping DNA material from those who were "entitled to the presumption of innocence" as they had never been convicted of an offence, carried "the risk of stigmatisation". Ignoring EU law (for the first time) the government now intends to keep, regardless of guilt all records for a minimum of 6 years.
These are laws, powers and technology Herr Honecker and his Stasi spy’s could only dream of.
Furthermore, if our European clients believe this is only applicable to the POMES (Prisoners of Mother England) you are wrong.
The European Surveillance State.
According to research from the Open Europe think tank:
" the (Lisbon) Treaty will help accelerate moves towards an EU surveillance state. The Lisbon Treaty marks a significant shift of power away from national governments and will lead to an increase in the volume and scope of EU legislation.
Continued Page 2"
They continue:
"They include: a target to train a third of all police officers across the EU in a "common culture" of policing; the mass collection and sharing of personal data including DNA records into an EU-wide database; controversial surveillance techniques including 'cyber patrols'; the creation of a fledgling 'EU Home Office' with powers to decide on cooperation on police, border, immigration and criminal justice issues; an EU "master plan" on information exchange; the transfer of criminal proceedings among EU member states; a three-fold increase in the number of controversial EU arrest warrants; access to other member states' national tax databases; and EU laws on citizens' right to internet access, among many other things. on, which is already having a profound impact on EU citizens' civil liberties and privacy."
The questions is WHY? Do “they” know something we don't? we think so..
