THE BLACKMAIL STATE
“If you’ve done
nothing wrong you’ve nothing to worry about.”
William Hague House of Commons earlier this year
If you have got nothing to hide, nothing you would prefer to keep private. if you have led a blameless life, this article need not detain you any further. You may go off and listen to Louis Armstrong’s rendition of 'What A Wonderful World.'
No, touched by sin, one or two things you would rather were kept private; join the club.
Relax, we are not alone, I would hazard a guess that 90% of the population share our blemished record. I am not talking here, of course about significant criminal activity, major crimes and misdemeanour's but of minor infractions of the law, infidelity, lapses of moral taste and judgement, a failure to live up to the standards that, ideally, we would all wish to attain. There is nothing new here, thus it is and thus it ever was, and was ever destined to be; man an imperfectly developed animal, flawed from the moment of conception.
In the past this did not matter, secrets were the product of a life fully lived, your own, if you wished, to take with you to the grave. Not so today, for now your secrets may be of interest to the state.
The twentieth century saw the birth of totalitarian culture, with the state abrogating to itself the right to know everything about the life of 'its' citizens. That was the job of the security services such as the KGB or Stasi. Thus in the so called German Democratic Republic, [GDR], secrets, from infidelity to unusual sexual predilections, became weapons in the hand of the state, to be used as and when necessary.
This kind of thing was largely restricted to totalitarian regimes; in democratic states like the US or UK the security services being something you only read about in novels by Ian Fleming or John Le Carre. Spies not being concerned with the humble citizen, but with other spies, foreign diplomats, arms dealers, and shady characters masquerading as journalists or businessmen.
In reality the truth was always more complex, in this country protest groups, particularly of the left, have always been the subject of intrusive surveillance and illegal activities by MI5 and Special Branch, as has been highlighted by Operation Herne, see, http://alextalbot.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/undercover-britains-secret-police-force.html
Though the belief, held true by most people, that if they kept within the law and did not make a nuisance of themselves they would never interest the police or security services was very much the reality. Apart from any other considerations the technology simply did not allow for mass surveillance.
After 9/11 all that changed; developments in technological capabilities coupled with the Orwellian Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, RIPA, changed the relationship between citizen and state without any corresponding public debate about this change. The security services[1] were enabled to spy on the electronic traffic of all citizens, with fairly derisory oversight. Now the Snowden revelations have revealed the extent to which the state now collects data from all citizens. Malcolm Rifkind the chair of the parliamentary committee that oversees the security services seeks to reassure all with the mantra that, just because your electronic communication is intercepted by GCHQ* it does not mean it will be read; the security services are not interested in the likes of you and I,- the law abiding public.
This of course, up to a point, is still true; though the best way to conceptualise the new situation is to imagine the security services have copies of all your correspondence put to one side and stamped ‘only to be opened if person becomes of interest.’
Perhaps the majority are sanguine about this state of affairs as Rifkind imagines, I wonder; still I suspect that most people may still be of the “if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to worry about,” school. But some, a few perhaps, may one day wake up when they start making a fuss about fracking in their area, object to an infrastructure project like HS2 or runway expansion, when suddenly they will find themselves ‘a person of interest.’ Traffic offences, an affair at work, visits to pornographic websites all possible information to discredit an individual lying easily at hand. Probably the state will not use it, but it will be there if the need arises. More insidiously it will start to ‘dawn’ on the latent activist that life could suddenly become more difficult should they choose to persist. One day it might be you who wakes up to the reality that you now live in a blackmail state.
Paranoid ravings, possibly, but consider this the system used by the spying agency GCHQ is called Tempora, it has the capacity to harvest the recordings of telephone calls, the content of email messages, Facebook entries and the personal internet history of all UK citizens. Perhaps the government can be trusted not to misuse such power. The record however is not good. Respecting existing surveillance powers, which the government stated in parliament were only aimed at terrorists:-
Authorities have used covert surveillance to spy on their own employees – because they thought they were lying about their car parking (Darlington), work times (Exeter), sick pay (Hambleton, Hammersmith and Fulham) – or to spy on the wardens they employ to spot crime (Liverpool). Over a dozen authorities have used RIPA to spy on dog owners to see whose animals were responsible for dog fouling. Five authorities have used their powers to spy on people suspected of breaking the smoking ban.[2]
A few years ago the police adopted the notorious tactic of 'kettling' when policing demonstrations, i.e. keeping crowds penned into confined areas without access to proper facilities for prolonged periods of time. I know of one person who was sufficiently traumatised that she will never attend a demonstration again. This, amongst other things, was the intention, the message being clear, you should have stayed at home.
Similarly the next time you get angry and what to kick up a fuss maybe you will think of something you did in the past, shoplifting at 17, or something you wrote on Facebook or Twitter, would you really want this exposed for all to see. Better stay silent, let someone else protest.
Still feeling quite so sanguine? I hope not.
PS: As I write this the government has just passed legislation that could mean if you are found guilty of anti social behaviour, possibly being involved in a demonstration that turns into a riot and have a social tenancy you could now face eviction. This could even be the consequence of being fitted up by the police, - though of course we know they would never do something like that!
Welcome to the Blackmail state.
*GCHQ The monitoring agency based in Cheltenham England.
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William Hague House of Commons earlier this year
If you have got nothing to hide, nothing you would prefer to keep private. if you have led a blameless life, this article need not detain you any further. You may go off and listen to Louis Armstrong’s rendition of 'What A Wonderful World.'
No, touched by sin, one or two things you would rather were kept private; join the club.
Relax, we are not alone, I would hazard a guess that 90% of the population share our blemished record. I am not talking here, of course about significant criminal activity, major crimes and misdemeanour's but of minor infractions of the law, infidelity, lapses of moral taste and judgement, a failure to live up to the standards that, ideally, we would all wish to attain. There is nothing new here, thus it is and thus it ever was, and was ever destined to be; man an imperfectly developed animal, flawed from the moment of conception.
In the past this did not matter, secrets were the product of a life fully lived, your own, if you wished, to take with you to the grave. Not so today, for now your secrets may be of interest to the state.
The twentieth century saw the birth of totalitarian culture, with the state abrogating to itself the right to know everything about the life of 'its' citizens. That was the job of the security services such as the KGB or Stasi. Thus in the so called German Democratic Republic, [GDR], secrets, from infidelity to unusual sexual predilections, became weapons in the hand of the state, to be used as and when necessary.
This kind of thing was largely restricted to totalitarian regimes; in democratic states like the US or UK the security services being something you only read about in novels by Ian Fleming or John Le Carre. Spies not being concerned with the humble citizen, but with other spies, foreign diplomats, arms dealers, and shady characters masquerading as journalists or businessmen.
In reality the truth was always more complex, in this country protest groups, particularly of the left, have always been the subject of intrusive surveillance and illegal activities by MI5 and Special Branch, as has been highlighted by Operation Herne, see, http://alextalbot.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/undercover-britains-secret-police-force.html
Though the belief, held true by most people, that if they kept within the law and did not make a nuisance of themselves they would never interest the police or security services was very much the reality. Apart from any other considerations the technology simply did not allow for mass surveillance.
After 9/11 all that changed; developments in technological capabilities coupled with the Orwellian Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, RIPA, changed the relationship between citizen and state without any corresponding public debate about this change. The security services[1] were enabled to spy on the electronic traffic of all citizens, with fairly derisory oversight. Now the Snowden revelations have revealed the extent to which the state now collects data from all citizens. Malcolm Rifkind the chair of the parliamentary committee that oversees the security services seeks to reassure all with the mantra that, just because your electronic communication is intercepted by GCHQ* it does not mean it will be read; the security services are not interested in the likes of you and I,- the law abiding public.
This of course, up to a point, is still true; though the best way to conceptualise the new situation is to imagine the security services have copies of all your correspondence put to one side and stamped ‘only to be opened if person becomes of interest.’
Perhaps the majority are sanguine about this state of affairs as Rifkind imagines, I wonder; still I suspect that most people may still be of the “if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to worry about,” school. But some, a few perhaps, may one day wake up when they start making a fuss about fracking in their area, object to an infrastructure project like HS2 or runway expansion, when suddenly they will find themselves ‘a person of interest.’ Traffic offences, an affair at work, visits to pornographic websites all possible information to discredit an individual lying easily at hand. Probably the state will not use it, but it will be there if the need arises. More insidiously it will start to ‘dawn’ on the latent activist that life could suddenly become more difficult should they choose to persist. One day it might be you who wakes up to the reality that you now live in a blackmail state.
Paranoid ravings, possibly, but consider this the system used by the spying agency GCHQ is called Tempora, it has the capacity to harvest the recordings of telephone calls, the content of email messages, Facebook entries and the personal internet history of all UK citizens. Perhaps the government can be trusted not to misuse such power. The record however is not good. Respecting existing surveillance powers, which the government stated in parliament were only aimed at terrorists:-
Authorities have used covert surveillance to spy on their own employees – because they thought they were lying about their car parking (Darlington), work times (Exeter), sick pay (Hambleton, Hammersmith and Fulham) – or to spy on the wardens they employ to spot crime (Liverpool). Over a dozen authorities have used RIPA to spy on dog owners to see whose animals were responsible for dog fouling. Five authorities have used their powers to spy on people suspected of breaking the smoking ban.[2]
A few years ago the police adopted the notorious tactic of 'kettling' when policing demonstrations, i.e. keeping crowds penned into confined areas without access to proper facilities for prolonged periods of time. I know of one person who was sufficiently traumatised that she will never attend a demonstration again. This, amongst other things, was the intention, the message being clear, you should have stayed at home.
Similarly the next time you get angry and what to kick up a fuss maybe you will think of something you did in the past, shoplifting at 17, or something you wrote on Facebook or Twitter, would you really want this exposed for all to see. Better stay silent, let someone else protest.
Still feeling quite so sanguine? I hope not.
PS: As I write this the government has just passed legislation that could mean if you are found guilty of anti social behaviour, possibly being involved in a demonstration that turns into a riot and have a social tenancy you could now face eviction. This could even be the consequence of being fitted up by the police, - though of course we know they would never do something like that!
Welcome to the Blackmail state.
*GCHQ The monitoring agency based in Cheltenham England.
[1] And not only the security
services, in 2008 I attended an NHS fraud reduction seminar in which it was
openly boasted that the fraud section of the NHS was using RIPA. Incidents of
local authorities using the act, for example on parents seeking to place their
children in a local school, are well recorded. This despite government
assurances that the powers would only ever be used in extremis, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/22/ripa_bigbrotherwatch/
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