The BBC are reporting an interview with Dame Stella Rimington, former head of MI5, in which she makes some insightful comments about the slow erosion of civil liberties in the UK. Included in the BBC report are these data points from civil liberties group ‘Liberty’:
- Government plans for a giant database to record the times, dates and recipients of all emails and text messages sent and phone calls made in the UK
- The growth of Britain's DNA database - it is now the world's largest, per head of population, with samples from some 4m people
- The use by councils of laws designed to track criminals and terrorists to spy on ordinary citizens. In one case a family was watched to see if they were really living in a school catchment area
- The spread of CCTV cameras. Britain now reportedly has some 4m, the highest density in western Europe
- Proposals for "secret inquests," excluding relatives, juries and the media, which the government says would prevent intelligence details leaking out
Combine all of that with the topsy-turvy world economy where governments are increasingly becoming majority shareholders in key financial institutions and, if you squint a little and extrapolate a lot, you can almost just about kind of see East Germany 2.0. Of course this version will have new, improved features such as lip-reading CCTV cameras but they (hopefully) won’t have Trabants :-)
It’s moments like these that remind me just easy it can be for the freedoms we take for granted to be gradually eroded over time, often in the name of ‘security’ and mostly by people whose ‘hearts were in the right place’.
Wendell Phillips’ quotation that ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty’ is as true now as it was when he said it back in 1852. What worries me is that there appears to be people in positions of power who are under the mistaken impression that “surveillance” and “vigilance” are synonyms.
Update 20Feb09: while driving to work this morning I heard a radio news item which mentioned that UK Police are requesting all pubs and clubs to install CCTV cameras and that the cameras must be positioned in such a way as to ensure that a full facial picture is taken of each customer. They are also demanding access to the CCTV files as and when required. Apparently failing to comply with this ‘request’ will result in the local police branch not supporting the publican / club owner’s application for renewal of their liquor license. When I wrote this post the title was written with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. Now I’m not so sure.
Image credit: Banksy
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