Posted by Helen on Thu 29 Oct 2009 at 15:19
A new civil liberties watchdog site has been launched, with many of the same aims as Police State UK. Big Brother Watch has just announced its launch in The Guardian's Comment is Free, suggesting that an increasing number of people are becoming concerned about privacy, surveillance and the curtailment of personal liberties in the UK:
Today, we at Big Brother Watch - a new campaigning organisation fighting intrusions on the privacy and liberties of ordinary Britons - have released survey research which shows that four out of five people believe their freedoms are being eroded.
Whether it be surveillance cameras capable of recording conversations, such as those trialled in Glasgow earlier this year, or microchips in rubbish bins designed to monitor what your family throws away each week, people are beginning to turn on the worst excesses of the state.
Those in power clearly hope that a cultural shift will accompany the rise in repressive legislation. By paying members of the public to snoop on their neighbours the government hopes to discourage criticism by providing incentives to those who help the surveillance regime. Big Brother Watch believe that this attempt is failing as the British people resist the increasing intrusion of the state into their lives.
In recent months the prime minister has started to soften the rules around the national identity card scheme and has finally caught up with the European court of human rights ruling to remove the DNA of innocent people from the DNA database.
This may be a little optimistic, given that the ACPO has explicitly instructed police forces to continue collecting DNA from innocent people despite the ruling. By removing the planned legislation from the Parliamentary calendar the Government have merely delayed the point at which they have to overturn that advice.
In fact, rather than improving, the situation seems to be worsening. Every week brings new revelations of ways in which our rights to privacy and liberty are being eroded. It seems that things can only get worse before they can get better. But one consequence of this is that, while campaigners and activists have not found much success as yet, an increasing number of people are starting to join in the conversation:
We are increasingly being urged to hand over our personal information to the state. DNA databases, biometric ID cards; even the 2011 census wants to know who we're sleeping with. Yet, as our polling demonstrated, almost nine in 10 people don't trust in the ability of the state to keep that data safe. ... This is an issue on which left and right come together.
It's true that the Conservatives have started advocating that which the Liberal Democrats have been saying for ages: that action needs to be taken to reclaim our civil liberties. Whether or not you believe that either party will act on their manifesto promises if they gain power, the debate certainly seems to be gaining momentum. More and more people are becoming aware of the issue - and polling suggests that most people resent these intrusions into their lives. A recent article by a previous Labour Home Secretary claiming that the public want more databases has been decisively challenged.
The biggest danger of a police state is its insidious nature - you don't notice it before it's too late. With the increasing opportunities for citizen journalism and free speech offered by the Internet, and the growing number of campaign groups putting pressure on politicians to challenge the status quo, optimism about raising awareness seems justified. Whether or not this will translate into legislative change with this or the next government is another question entirely.
This article can be found online at the Police State UK website at the following bookmarkable URL:
This article is copyright 2009 Helen - please ask for permission to republish or translate.