The end of the world as we know it.
Today the government announced plans to fit every home in the UK with cameras and microphones so that behaviour within the family home can be "effectively policed". A secondary plank to this legislation will be the automatic issuing of ASBO's to any family or individual that social services deems to be abnormal.
Sounds far fetched doesn't it? Except we're not that far away from it. The UK's Information commissioner, Richard Thomas has warned that we are "Sleepwalking into a surviellance society". He also said he did not want to sound "paranoid" but pointed to General Franco's Spain and Communist Eastern Europe as examples of what can happen when a government gets too powerful and has too much information on its citizens.
Britain has 20% of the worlds total CCTV cameras! 20%! That's one camera for every 14 people. Add to this the camera monitoring number plates, the shop checkouts that monitor your spending and you can see we are indeed not far off from the camera's in the home eventuality. Orwells 1984 has never been a more serious threat/reality. And it's something we must fight. We must have freedom, not the illusion of freedom.
The Police have asked the government to make flag burning illegal. For what? Don't we have enough laws? Enough rules and regulations? Can't people see that the more you lock people down the more they kick back? Have we learned nothing in the last 20 years when society has been all but destroyed and people can live their lives and simple black and white?
More insidious still was the small print - that Police want to make it illegal to cover your face during a march/protest/whatever.
Why is this worrying? Put simply, the most basic foundation of our legal system - innocent until proven guilty, will be removed. This will be replaced with the assumption that you are about to commit an offence and you will be treated as such. The balance of power will have shifted from us electing the government with the police here to protect and serve our rights, tot he government controlling us and the police ensuring our compliance with government diktats.
We are reaching a turning point. Which way will you turn?
Sounds far fetched doesn't it? Except we're not that far away from it. The UK's Information commissioner, Richard Thomas has warned that we are "Sleepwalking into a surviellance society". He also said he did not want to sound "paranoid" but pointed to General Franco's Spain and Communist Eastern Europe as examples of what can happen when a government gets too powerful and has too much information on its citizens.
Britain has 20% of the worlds total CCTV cameras! 20%! That's one camera for every 14 people. Add to this the camera monitoring number plates, the shop checkouts that monitor your spending and you can see we are indeed not far off from the camera's in the home eventuality. Orwells 1984 has never been a more serious threat/reality. And it's something we must fight. We must have freedom, not the illusion of freedom.
The Police have asked the government to make flag burning illegal. For what? Don't we have enough laws? Enough rules and regulations? Can't people see that the more you lock people down the more they kick back? Have we learned nothing in the last 20 years when society has been all but destroyed and people can live their lives and simple black and white?
More insidious still was the small print - that Police want to make it illegal to cover your face during a march/protest/whatever.
Why is this worrying? Put simply, the most basic foundation of our legal system - innocent until proven guilty, will be removed. This will be replaced with the assumption that you are about to commit an offence and you will be treated as such. The balance of power will have shifted from us electing the government with the police here to protect and serve our rights, tot he government controlling us and the police ensuring our compliance with government diktats.
We are reaching a turning point. Which way will you turn?
posted by p8ddy at 11:56 am
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