The people of the UK must throw out the Labour Government soon before the petty tyrants of the Home Office turn Great Britain into Vladimir Putin’s Russia (and before they give any more ideas on shredding civil liberties to the Republicans in the United States). The BBC reports that the Home Office wants to create a database of EVERY telephone call and email message in the UK. The justification for this is to fight terrorism and crime.
Are they insane?
The British have just as poor a record of preserving privacy as the American government has. I cannot imagine the danger of incompetence in security with that much information available to be stolen. Nor can I imagine the threat to civil liberties. At least the United States has a definite, written Bill of Rights. Our President and the Departments of Justice and Homeland Insecurity may not pay much attention to it, but at least we give it a nodding respect. But, even so, this proposal seems far beyond what even the wild-eyed Putin Wannabees of the Bush Administration have proposed, (though I am certain the McCain Administration will be eager to emulate the Mother Country).
Chris Huhne of the Liberal Democrats was quoted by the BBC as calling the proposal “an Orwellian step too far.” Gee, you think?
He said ministers had “taken leave of their senses if they think that this proposal is compatible with a free country and a free people”.
Would that America had a Chris Huhne to stand up to our own security freaks. A nation that places security before freedom, deserves neither, and usually gets neither.
