NOTHING TO FEAR?

I listened to the remarks of Malcom Rifkind on the Today programme on Monday morning. I found the sanguine attitude toward the steady erosion of privacy in the name of security* unsurprising but no less disturbing. I always note that people who are very quick to volunteer that you can never have complete privacy are less inclined to offer up the reality that we can never have complete security. People talk in bland terms of 'striking a balance' by which they usually mean less privacy. Wouldn't it be refreshing for a politician to state 'yes we will better protect your privacy, but there will be some corresponding loss of security.'

New Labour was particularly fond of this 'striking a balance’ formula. I'm not sure the likes of, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Jacqui Smith, John Reid et al had any understanding of concerns about privacy and civil liberties, which they saw as merely a fetish of Hampstead liberals.
The Foreign Secretary's performance in Parliament was even more woeful. I do not appreciate being patronised and told not to worry my pretty little head about these things, that as long as I am law abiding I have nothing to fear. This is a variant on 'if you've nothing to hide what do you have to fear? My response to this is to demand the curtains and blinds of the person making this case.
I am of course far more likely to be run over on the roads than to be killed in a terrorist incident, though no politician would suggest as a consequence an equivalent measures against road traffic; respecting road accidents the ‘balance’ is struck at a far less draconian level. Governing elites take a punt that we don’t care as much about privacy and anyhow can be sufficiently frightened to accept greater and greater levels of surveillance. It is of course greatly in their interest to know what it is that we are doing, and even more what it is we are thinking. Big Brother watches you not because he has nothing better to do but because knowledge is power and to have power is to have control.
How about resurrecting a good old slice of British straight talk and direct it at those wishing to monitor more and more what we do, ‘it's none of your bloody business!”

*You can of course end up having neither.
You can sign the petition respecting Edward Snowden at:-

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_prism_6/?tURqEab












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