I read this in the Times this morning with a sinking heart. Our civil liberties that have been accumulated over centuries - sometimes with bloodshed - have being trampled upon with every increasing gusto by the Government. I am appalled by the latest news that all purchasers of PAYG mobile phones will need some form of official identification (and what about all of the under 18 kids for who mobiles phone access is de rigour? ) and that that information will be added to the "Big Brother" database being mooted by GCHQ. Apart from the technical issues (see Dizzy passim) which are considerable, this really really take the piss out of the old Elgar song with the lines "Mother of the free" ha ha bloody ha!.
The Tories must stand up and say "No more of this" The Government must get out of peoples lives. It won't help the fight against terrorism - the bad guys will just find ways around this (car boot sales of mobiles, reprogramming the IMEI, stolen phones etc) - but it will be an abhorrant interference into peoples private lives.
We are not drifting into a surveillance society - we ARE a surveillance society and it is getting worse.
Update: It gets worse ... I wrote the above before discovered this: http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2008/10/home-secretary-jacqui-smith---discussing-remote-searches-of-computer-hard-drives.html
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