The slow death of private life
According to the Guardian’s leader-writer:
It is not any one cigarette or one extra drink that is ruinous to the health. The damage is done over the years, almost imperceptibly. Grave threats to the health of democracy can also accrue so incrementally that they draw little attention. A committee of peers diagnose one such danger today in a report on the steady creep of surveillance. The charge of hysteria is routinely used to sweep aside such talk when it comes from crusading journalists and pressure groups. The Lords constitutional affairs committee, however, cannot be dismissed the same way. A more dignified band of dignitaries would be hard to imagine – it includes a former attorney general who is a conservative champion of that antiquated role, a Tory expert on the constitution, and a founder of that force of militant moderation that was called the SDP.
The editorial concludes:
One of the few shortcomings of the Lords report is its silence on those threats to privacy that ministers are currently pushing, notably the super-database on mobile communications. That silence may be the price for achieving all-party consensus. Even after that price has been paid, however, the committee has done invaluable work. It has nailed the age-old lie on surveillance – by asserting that those with nothing to hide can still have a great deal to fear.
February 6th, 2009 at 20:14
… ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to fear’ …
surely one of if not the most infuriating “replies” when trying to express to some nincomnumbskull the dangers of CCTV and ruddy great government databases.
Second only to people who have the most horrific accidents and near-misses, are saved by hundreds of firemen, ambulancemen, policemen and St Bernard dogs with brandy-keg collars – only to turn to camera to praise and thank their “god”.
England’s been at the leading edge of so many global changes in the past from industrialisation to the Victoria Sponge to the invention of the lying, thieving, cheating, morally-bankrupt, personality-free, non-independent and un-free thinking politician. I think that we’re still at the leading edge.
Which is why the rest of the planet should be looking at us now and quaking in their boots…
‘Scuse me – must go. There’s a man from the local council at the door with a summons for me. Apparently fridge-cam showed that I didn’t buy enough veggies today and bathroom-cam confirmed excessive use of sodium plus car-cam ratted on me for playing loud and aggressive music while commuting and work-cam proves that I wasn’t very good at my job anyway. Worse yet I’ve never been auto-recognised on church-cam (multi-demoninational) and it’s just come to light from poll-booth cam footage held in Parish Records that I voted for the opposition anyway.
Looks like it’s a couple of years in the correctional centre for me.