Careless talk costs wives
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Sci-fi security peddled as liberty
UK PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN has defended the apparatus of the UK's emerging surveillance society as the means to bring liberty to the people.
Britain's infamous identity cards, CCTV, biometrics and DNA scanners will make people more free by making them more secure, he said yesterday in defence of his security strategy.
On the back foot over the UK's security tech and his proposals to lock terrorism suspects up for longer without charge, Brown sounded as though he had been backed into the reassuring clutches of the security hawks, whose cynical arguments for more surveillance can be persuasive.
His proposal to bring liberty by tackling poverty and inequality, which had been a key proposal of his government's security strategy, was given no mention. They had been proposed as a way of disarming terrorist intent.
The two billion people living on a dollar a day, the vast inequalities of wealth in the more smug countries of the West, the plight of the occupied Palestinian people - such things had threaded humanity through Brown's security strategy when it was published in March, as it had when the government outlined its holistic approach to security a year ago.
Speaking yesterday in answer to a report of the Home Affairs Select Committee on Britain's emerging surveillance society, which called last week for the government to strike a balance between security and liberty, Brown said he was "striking a balance between security and liberty".
"New technology is giving us modern means by which we can discharge [security] duties. But we must at the same time do more to guarantee our liberties," he said, before launching into a long, fearful speech that catalogued threats and the technological means of trapping and suppressing them.
So, he said, the government would ensure that Britain's surveillance devices would not be used to treat citizens "arbitrarily", nor trounce their rights. And the operators of such devices should be subject to more transparency and scrutiny. This was "the British way", he said, but said little else about it.
He instead launched on a long defence of identity cards, DNA logging and CCTV as a means of bringing liberty. Identity Cards would give people liberty by protecting their identities, he said. As for safeguards on liberty, he said it would not be compulsory to carry an ID card and the government would keep a minimum amount of data about each person.
But the government is already advising private firms how they can develop services that use the ID card and help make it essential that everyone carries one. And Brown made no mention of the plan for the ID system to keep a record of every time someone uses their card.
Though many horrific crimes have been solved with the assistance of CCTV evidence, Brown's suggestion that there may be limits put on the use of CCTV in the name of liberty were undermined by his desire that cameras be used to tackle what he called the "crime" of anti-social behaviour.
Brown's suggestion that it was desirable to keep the DNA records of innocent people on the police DNA database was called "ridiculous and false" by Genewatch, a campaign group. In the wake of police suggestions that DNA might one day be accessed to determine which children might in future be more likely to commit crimes so the cynics can keep a special eye on them, Brown said people would be protected from arbitrary treatment by the technology.
But his reassurances were lost amidst his fearmongering advocacy - which echoed so faithfully the rhetoric of the powerful security/military industry lobby - of sci-fi security tech.
Brown appeared so taken by the misanthropes that he spoke with a miser's tongue of the security threat posed by "illegal workers". And he promised to invest with a miser's interests another 150 per cent of the £1bn being spent on security tech, while making a passing reference to the "battle of ideas", which seems to have degenerated as all battles do, to the lowest common denominator. µ
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"Britain's infamous identity cards, CCTV, biometrics and DNA scanners will make people more free by making them more secure, he said yesterday in defence of his security strategy."

Yes, and also "arbeit macht frei".
Another excuse to take taxes and give it to their chums.

MPs get away with fraud like the conservative who was "renting" his own home from himself and claiming that as expenses. The other MPs investigating him said it was an honest mistake. Huh? How is that in anyway honest?

They take tax from us, take the money, give it to your rich friends.

They tell us plastic bags are bad for the air and we may have to pay 20p for bag. But they won't reduce the tax on fitting Solar Panels.

Gordon Brown - same as all the rest. We need less of these fleas.
Liberty cannot be portioned out by any government. The best any government can do is fail to take our liberty.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet?
What Gordon Brown is really saying is... "It's ok for us to wield all this power over your liberty, because we're the good guys... we're not like those bad regimes and juntas you hear about, we could do no wrong, honest"

There's only one problem with this...
It's bollox.

It's also a door once opened, we'll never keep closed. Liberty lost has to be fought back with lots of blood...
Thank you for another fine insightful article Mr. Ballard!
I can relate to this from just last evening, your time. I was attempting to eschew the old chowhound with a Wii Polo workout in the altogether. I was taking the bump from four in a gallop whilst beginning the second chukker, when my stick caught up conkerwise of my filly's halter. She shimmy bucked and threw me, all the while hoofing me head. I recovered, but will use a Shetland Pony henceforth. Incidently, you can still buy the kit for Wii Polo over at Nags-R-Us.com. Avoid the whinnying mount, she bites. Anyhoo, this horseplay would certainly have brought the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance (NWA) out against me, were it not for the knackerless efforts of constable Angel, and his band of merry hoodies; who had the foresight to spray paint all the CCTV lenses in the dark. Oh sure, you can chuck it up to another "Hot Fuzz" steamy night in rural Gloucestershire, but we should be concerned about the greater threat of these crop-circling, peeping tom Aliens that are juggling about like gypsies, Germans on holiday, the French, and those insufferable, aging Mad Cows. Oh and don't forget the bloody Yanks. The merchant bankers are just out for a sure bet, odds on favorite, for fleecing our sheepskins... Oh Evils, have you seen my riding crop lying about? Oi! I need a bit of a lie down and chiller for me head.
When I read "Brown" it reminded me of the Nazis and the GESTAPO. Sorry.
I've always said Terrorism is a monopoly of the politicians. This just goes to prove me right. Throw away our liberties in the false hopes our government gives us - what a load of codswollop Mr Brown tries to fool us with - what do we look like, americans?
yeah,

that's great then,

protecting liberty,

by putting everyone in a database and recording everything they do.

Very,

...free, yeah, free.

I feel so much,

safer,

yeah, that's it,

safer,

and free,



Sigh,

well what else could you expect from a government that is so afraid of kids dancing that it bans such activity.

I think I read a book about it,

what was it called?

Something with a number in it,

48?

Nah,

2008?

Oh now I remember,

it was 1984,

and in it they had security,

yes,

a very secure society,

admirable even.

No doubt a great inspiration for the current administration.

Fascists?!! Us?!! Noooo...

We're not fascists,

we're a free democracy,

very free,

and secure,

with parlamentism.



... that '1984' only applied to American conservatives. The thing most readers of Orwell's classic ignored, was that it spoke out against all government. Enjoy your liberty and let us yanks know how it feels, it looks like our next president (whichever it is) will take us right along behind you....
Might start with not loosing government Top Secret documents all over the place, eh Gordon ?
Or will ID cards put a stop to that too ?