Land of the CCTV camera, home of the ID database

Well said. NewLabour has been the most oppressively authoritarian government ever, and will be evicted into the wilderness again at the next election. Whether the encroachments on our liberty will be rolled back by the next lot though is doubtful. But we'll see. The writer seems to think Cromwell was a man of the people and a revolutionary; he actually became the closest thing we have ever had to a despot, always the problem when one individual gets too much power. And Wilberforce was a politician who merely jumped on the anti-slavery bandwagon [which had been largely a female campaign up to then] and got all the kudos for being a reformer and 'the man who ended slavery'. Politicians always grab the limelight, but I would expect the writer to have done a bit more of his homework.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 11:44am on February 26, 2009

I strongly agree. Information is routinely misused, shared inappropriately - and sought inappropriately. The naive assumption is that UK governments protect individual interests and are not and will never be despotic. MP's seem very relaxed about an emergent data gathering and sharing strategy which leaves individual citizens at extraordinary risk. A Bill of Rights would at least provide a rationale and legal framework for citizens.

Posted by dexy at 12:38pm on February 26, 2009

The "news" article implies George Bush, in concert with the Labour government, is somehow responsible for the diminution of civil rights in the UK... I don't follow -- how did Bush cause an erosion of civil rights in a foreign country ? Uh, is it my imagination, or is The First Post yet another left-leaning Limey print publication ? One of many, eh, wot ?

Posted by Chris Long at 7:16pm on February 26, 2009

When you have your long-overdue revolution, I would love to see crowds of the people, gleefully stomping the guts out of those Big Brother cameras. Next, destroy the databases. Remember, we surround them.

Posted by Big Bear at 7:34pm on February 26, 2009

As an American, I promise you that the tales of the Bush/Cheney invasion of citizens' privacy were greatly exagerated as a political technique of the opposition political party. What was far more frightening was the tax audits on many Republicans by the previous Administration, the Clintons. They used the IRS (our taxing agency) as a weapon against their political enemies. What Bush did do was to allow the CIA (our international security agency) to listen into cell conversations that were going into countries such as Iran and Palestine. Frankly, most Americans were not troubled by this given the many victims of 9/11. Actually, most of us were very happy to not have another attack for the last 7 plus years. As for invasion of all of our liberties, we are horrified to hear of British police sitting in pubs and recording "hate speech" and we cannot believe that Brits cannot shot to kill any home invader. You ought to be allowed to. What we believe is that only honest citizens obey gun and knife laws. Criminals ignore them and put the rest of us at risk.

Posted by joinamerica at 8:55pm on February 26, 2009

Its about time...When you turned away the Dutch man and denied him free speech and expression I thought England is no more. You allow a bunch of immigrants run your churches, schools, newspapers, radio stations and are so busy worrying about offending this group or that group, you have lost your rights to Free Expression and free speech, you lose that and you lose your ..and I say your country. You have nothing left but you Freedom to change things to act on situations, you cannot please Everyone..this is England, first, for Gods sake protect her. Your liberals need to live in Cuba for a year, then and only then can they comment on Freedoms...it is your most Valued gift as a nation.

Posted by Terrylee Moore at 9:47pm on February 26, 2009

To my British friends I implore you to fiercely push back against this infringement of privacy rights and ongoing erosion of civil liberties in order to placate those who use political correctness as a weapon against you. My friends in the UK tell me how they have had to move to small towns that they had never imagined to ever life in due to how extreme the march for political correctness and 'safety' has gotten. Best of luck. Many of us are rooting for you over here.

Posted by John Doe at 10:33pm on February 26, 2009

Laws and systems allegedly introduced to protect us against 'terrorism' are already being used against the citizenry. Meanwhile new and vastly expensive security projects such as ID cards are planned in our increasingly paranoid country. The claim that they ensure our security is laughable. Our loss of liberty is not worth the unmeasured and unproven protection claimed by politicians whose motives remain suspect. It will get a lot worse and increasingly difficult to reverse if the public does not realise what it is losing and act. My paranoia means that I fear that I will now appear on some 'black list' for writing this.

Posted by Donald Brown at 10:36pm on February 26, 2009

Thank you for the original article, "Shriviled Liberty". Aristotle, the ancient and esteemed Greek philosopher, stated in his book, "Politics", that a democratic form of government without adequate republican ( equal rights concommitant with equal responsibilities for all citizens) safe guards was one of the worst forms of government. He stated that the same was tantamount to a tyranny of the majority such that the electoral majority simply grants itself political and economic preferences and places duties on and removes rights from the electoral minority. In essence, in the UK and the USA ,the electoral majority is women and the electoral minority is men. The deprivation of long standing civil liberties and personal liberties are a natural consequence of the same as a requisite of both maintaining and inhancing this electoral tyranny. Since this form of government is essentially a "tyranny", the "political establishment" which represents the same must utelize authoritarian means to maintain an oppressive unjust system which has as it's goals "authoritarian ends". I agree with those in the UK that the UK needs it's own written "Bill of Rights" similar to the American Bill of Rights such that individual rights and liberties in the UK will be more definitively and adequately protected and promulgated. I wish those that demonstrate for this purpose in the UK the greatest success in their endeavor to both protect and inhance civil liberties and rights in the UK! The following are paragraphs included in the Magna Charta which King John of England was forced to sign in 1215 by the Magna Charta Barons â?¢ 39. No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed--nor will we go upon or send upon him--save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. â?¢ 40. To none will we sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice. I am a member of the Somerset Chapter Magna Charta Barons and the National Society Sons of the American Revolution.

Posted by C.V. Shaw at 1:00am on February 27, 2009

I am shocked that all of this lipservice is given to human rights and yet the article fails to mention Britain's recent denial of free speech rights to Geert Wilders. It smacks of hypocrisy.

Posted by ml at 2:23am on February 27, 2009

Tell them to shove their CCTVs up their wrinkled bums. The United States is heading in the same direction...doesn't help much that our populace has become a herd of lobotomized lemmings. Government is like a raging river, if we don't dam it up it will quickly erode all our liberties. We have government meddling to thank for our worldwide economic crisis. Now they claim to be able to fix it!

Posted by Shay Files at 3:33am on February 27, 2009

First off, I'm American. You take numerous whacks at Bush-Cheney. Fine, but how about Obama? He not only has affirmed 98% of Bush-Cheney's alleged abrogation of rights, but the Guantanamo guys are going to lose their pastry chef as he has them thrown into one of the harshest federal prisons. How many people know that? Furthermore, the tapping of foreign calls and such never affected me personally, but Obama's new intrusive government that is examining every bit of my financial life through our banks does. His desire to force my doctor to turn over my medical records is worse than anything Bush-Cheney ever thought of. Obama has more policies to invade privacy in one day than Bush had in 8 years. You guys need to study our politics a lot better. I'm sick of this mantra that Bush-Cheney did everything to violate freedoms while Obama is the savior of freedom. After the guy picks my pocket clean, I will lose a great guarantor of my freedom: my money.

Posted by John Doe at 4:53am on February 27, 2009

I live in California and I only wish that what this writer is saying were true. While we do still have many rights here in the US, and a Right is something that is inalienable and is granted to each person by God (or natural laws, whichever), too many of our rights are being whittled away by elected officials who failed to understand the Constitution or their oath of office. I agree with the idea that Britain needs a Bill of Rights, but, when you do it, make sure that no one, however stupid or underhanded can read some way of limiting or curtailing them that is not meant to be there. Here we are currently having problems with gun control (which, despite what many people in other areas of the world think is mostly about two things: the right to defend yourself and your family; and the right, in the occasion of the loss of other rights to defend your freedoms from your government). We also have problems with people wanting to control free speech to some extent, this is accepted in many areas of the world, but it is not something that can possibly go along with a truly free society. MY suggestions would be to include our first two amendments at least, as, in the final analysis all others truly rely upon the ability to defend your rights from an encroaching government and the ability to speak freely without fear of government reprisal. Long ago Britain led the world into an era of freedom and advancement like at no other time in known history. When we split from you we took it one farther, but we have faltered. We on this side of the Atlantic would be overjoyed to see another nation adopt true freedom and individual liberty and see it last longer than it probably will here. I wish you luck and a renewed and refreshed freedom. BTW, the things that Bush did (and I did vote for him both times, and did not vote for Obama), while they took away some of our privacy did not affect the rights guaranteed within the Bill of Rights, except the wiretaps that are unconstitutional under the IV Amendment (unreasonable search and seizure). The arguments that civil rights due to Americans are applicable to foreign citizens that were not apprehended upon US soil is accurate when read with the Declaration of Independence, but too many of our liberal (and Bush was no conservative) citizens don't mind it, clause about "inalienable rights," but with our problems just keeping our government limited I hope you don;t mind that we don't press too hard on that. I know we should, but, until we are allotted these inalienable rights ourselves, without the government trying to limit them, we can't afford to fight the battles everywhere at once.

Posted by sferguson at 10:06am on February 27, 2009

John Doe.. You can thank your press and media for the deification of Obama, He was allowed to get to the Whitehouse by the refusal of any of the mainstream media to ask him any questions that were likely to cause him any problems. It's time we all accepted the lunatics really have taken over the asylum, there has been a steady but persistent erosion of civil liberties for the last 40 years, the beliefs and rights of the many have been stomped on to pacify the rights of the few. The americans have the ACLU we have the court of human rights, their only purpose is to expand the rights of the twisted and perverted.

Posted by Gary O'Brien at 11:10am on February 27, 2009

How far will Obama actually push back the Bush administration's transgressions? I'm not sure he's that bothered. You are right that in Britain we take it for granted, we need politicians to take a more rigorous stand, to be honest I doubt this convention on liberty will do anything except fluff up a few egos. Personally I don't agree with a view of the UK govt as malicious tyrants, just half-baked control freaks who don't pay any heed to liberty, because we don't worry about that sort of thing in this country, we're not Saudi Arabia etc, maybe we should worry. Because of the integrated digital nature of the modern world, there will be more and more of 'us', that is, our information being held by public and private companies. That's to be expected unless you are a luddite, but there is no work being done to regulate the use and protection (or deletion) of the data, as far as I know. Nobody seems to care.

Posted by Mojo McClaine at 1:54pm on February 27, 2009

The best example that Britain's freedoms are imperiled is its government's recent craven action in disallowing Geert Wilder's entrance to that once great country. If you think your current government is intrusive, wait until Shar'ria is the law of the land. You'll pine for the days of the "Bush-poodling" Labour Party.

Posted by David McGinley at 6:22pm on February 27, 2009

Do all you can do to stop your pollies and police from taking over your lives,under any guise of protection-and good luck to you

Posted by greydawg15 at 7:40pm on February 28, 2009

I'm afraid you lost me at mention of the involvement of the Countryside Alliance. Whether they deserve it or not, they always remind me of that episode of Absolute Power ('Country Life' perhaps?) where the PR firm is enlisted to help the launch of a new rural political party, and at an early meeting in a country house are invited to admire a collection of watercolours, all signed A.H.

Posted by Fred Smith at 10:34am on March 8, 2009

This is outrageous - I am going to leave England for good!! "CCTV cameras to be in all UK homes by 2015"

Posted by Dean Donaldson at 10:53am on April 1, 2009