Still taking liberties

Continuing the civil liberties theme I would draw your attention to an excellent article in the Observer by long time rights campaigner, Henry Porter.

“By far the most dramatic threat to ordinary people’s freedom in the last decade has been the growth of the database state. Under Labour’s plans for ‘transformational government’, an almighty surveillance structure is envisaged, through which, by the admission of the man in charge, Sir David Varney, the state will know ‘a deep truth about the citizen based on their behaviour, experience, beliefs, needs or desires’.

As Jill Kirby pointed out in a recent Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet, the government’s intention is to centralise and share all information on the citizen, both horizontally and vertically, without the citizen’s knowledge. It is hard to imagine a more sinister apparatus of intrusion, and so control, but the project advances untroubled by the scrutiny of Parliament.

The state’s nightmarish lust for our personal data does not stop there. Already, all journeys undertaken on motorways and through town centres are recorded by the network of automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, with the information retained for two years. Under the National Identity Register, it seems that 49 pieces of information will still be required by the state and that every important transaction in the citizen’s life recorded. And there is a new proposal to collect 19 pieces of information, including mobile phone and credit-card numbers from people travelling abroad, which the government plans to use for ‘general public policy purposes’ - that is, the mass surveillance of a free people. I remind the committee of something American cryptographer and computer expert Bruce Schneier wrote: ‘It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could some day facilitate a police state.’”

Porter summarises how the Labour government have eroded basis rights and freedoms in recent years:

Communications
• Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2002), government agencies make 500,000 secret interceptions of email, internet connections and standard mail.
• Since summer 2007, the government and some 700 agencies have had access to all landline and mobile phone records.

Databases
• Police build network of ANPR cameras on motorways and in town centres. Data stored for two years.
• The National Identity Register will store details of every verification made by ID card holder. Data used without knowledge of citizens.
• ID card enrolment will require biometric details and large amount of personal data.
• The Home Office plans to take 19 pieces of information from anyone travelling abroad. No statutory basis.

Free expressions
• Public-order laws have been used to curtail free expression.
• The Race and Religious Hatred Act (2006) bans incitement of hatred on religious grounds.
• Terror laws are used to ban freedom of expression in some areas.

The courts
• Asbo legislation introduces hearsay evidence which can result in jail sentence.
• The Criminal Justice Act (2003) attacks jury trial.
• Admissibility of bad character, previous convictions and acquittals.
• The Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) allows confiscation of assets without prosecution.
• Special Immigration Appeals Court hearings held in secret.

Terror laws
• Terror laws used to stop and search. Current rate is 50,000 per annum.
• A maximum of 28 days detention without charge.

Points for discussion
Do you agree with the idea that we are as British citizens sleepwalking into a police state?
What does the government want with all the information it is collecting?
Do you support the planned introduction of national ID cards?
What does Porter suggest should be introduced in the UK instead?

Read the full article here